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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. # 

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OF CONCHES! 

WASHINGTON 




FUGITIVES 



FROM THE ESCRITOIRE 



A RETIRED EDITOR. 




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BOSTON: 

CROCKER AND BREWSTER 
1864. 



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RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



TO MY BELOVED WIFE, 
Mrs. HANNAH ALVARD BLISS CLARKE, 



®l)is Volume, 



COMPILED FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT AND BENEFIT OF OUR 

FAMILY CIRCLE AND PERSONAL FRIENDS, AND 

COMPLETED ON THIS 

FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF OUR MARRIAGE, 
IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY 

IBetricatetr. 

DORUS CLARKE. 

Waltham, May 20, 1864. 




INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



THE history of these " Fugitives " may be 
quickly told. Some of them have ap- 
peared and reappeared, in various public jour- 
nals, at frequent intervals for fifteen years past, 
till, it would seem, their periodicity might be 
calculated almost with the accuracy of that of 
the comets ; others announced themselves in the 
stately reviews, and, protected by copyright or 
their own insignificance, they have figured no 
farther on the stage of affairs ; some went be- 
fore the public in the pamphlet form, and are 
still performing their mission in the world ; 
and two or three more have now for the first 
time " made their escape," to give variety to the 
collection. In the more elaborated articles, will 
be found the Author's most matured views upon 
some of the profoundest problems in the whole 
circle of ethical and theological science. It is 



vi Introductory Note. 

to him a matter of grateful satisfaction to know, 
that these views have been substantially held by 
a long line of his intelligent and pious ancestors, 
extending back into the earliest times of New 
England and over the sea; and it is his earnest 
prayer that they may be embraced with the 
same sublime faith, and maintained with the 
same unswerving fidelity by all his descend- 
ants. 




CONTENTS. 

Page 

" Saying the Catechism " i 

Peccadilloes of the Pulpit 1 1 

The Merits of the Sabbath Hymn-Book 29 

Return to the Sanctuary 59 

The alleged Progress in Theology 60 

Communion with God 90 

The Tests of Religious Truth 91 

The American Tract Society and Slavery 1 18 

Original Sin 138 

Evangelists 162 

The Holy Trinity...: 190 

Lux in Tenebris 234 



FUGITIVES 



"SAYING THE CATECHISM." 



THE town of Westhampton, in the County 
of Hampshire, and good Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts, exhibited some sixty years 
ago several traits of the Puritanical character, 
one of which, more particularly, we would fain 
by this article fix and stereotype upon the mem- 
ory of the present generation. The scene of 
our story lies partly upon the beautiful Valley of 
the Connecticut, and partly upon the hills which 
form the eastern slope of the Green Mountain 
range, which extends from Canada to Long Isl- 
and Sound. ' Few towns in the Bay State are 
equal to it for the quiet and the picturesque. 
The calm, serpentine Connecticut, searching its 
way to the ocean ; Mount Tom, Mount Holyoke, 
Amherst College, Williston Seminary, Mount 
Holyoke Female Seminary, and several churches 
and smiling villages are distinctly visible from 



2 Fugitives. 

its loftier points of observation. It is far re- 
tired from all the cities of our country, and the 
simple, primitive manners of the people were 
equally removed from the artificial habits of 
what is termed polished life. The inhabitants 
were united, to a most unusual degree, both in 
politics and religion. At several gubernatorial 
elections, Caleb Strong had all the votes of the 
town with but two or three exceptions. In ec- 
clesiastical polity the people were, almost to a 
man, Congregationalists ; and in theology, they 
were as unitedly Calvinists. Excepting one 
family, all observed Saturday evening as a part 
of holy time, and with great conscientiousness 
and strictness. The pastor of the church, and 
the only man in town who claimed to exercise 
the functions of the clerical office, was the Rev. 
Enoch Hale. He was the first minister of the 
place. In his earlier days his orthodoxy was 
not regarded as of the highest tone, but repeated 
revivals of religion, and a deeper personal, exper- 
imental acquaintance with divine things, ren- 
dered his preaching, during the last half of his 
protracted ministry, more discriminating and 
evangelical. His habits were systematic and 
exact to a proverb. Every family in the neigh- 
borhood could regulate its long kitchen clock 
by the precise punctuality with which he would 



"Saying the Catechism." 3 

arrive to preach an appointed lecture. On the 
Sabbath, every man who was earlier or later 
than he at public worship doubted the correct- 
ness of his own chronometer. It must be wrong, 
for Mr. Hale was in the pulpit sooner or later 
than they were in the pews. He was for many 
years the clerical officer of the General Associa- 
tion of Congregational Ministers in the State. 
On one occasion, the meeting of that body was 
held seventy-five miles distant from his place of 
residence. Five minutes only were to elapse 
before the hour for opening the meeting would 
come. Speculation was rife as to the probability 
of his being there in season to attend to the 
duties of his office. One clergyman, who knew 
him better than the rest, remarked, that either 
the town clock was wrong, or Mr. Hale would 
yet be there punctually at the appointed hour. 
Curiosity became intense — the interest was pro- 
digious ; but before the last minute expired, 
Father Hale drove up, and was in his place in 
the church. 

Our readers have already been advertised of 
the great strictness with which his people ob- 
served the Sabbath. When Mr. Hale was set- 
tled among them he was ordained in a barn. 
The first meeting-house was built shortly after, 
and though it exhibited many symptoms of de- 



4 Fugitives. 

cay, and though old Boreas often treated himself 
to the music of the clatter of its doors and win- 
dows and shingles, it was still standing within 
our own recollection. It was innocent of paint 
and bell and steeple, as well as of a sparse con- 
gregation on the Sabbath. Rain or shine, snow 
or hail, lightning or thunder, the people were all 
there. The exercises were conducted with the 
greatest order and decorum. Father Hale car- 
ried his habits of system so far that he used to 
read, and to request his clerical brethren who 
occasionally preached for him, to read Watts's 
Psalms and Hymns right straight through in course, 
whatever might be their relevancy to the subject 
of the sermon. He always preached with his 
accurate watch lying on the pulpit before him ; 
and as he used to pray with his eyes wide open, 
he was careful to cut his sermons and prayers to 
the prescribed length, and if the moment for 
closing either arrived when he was in the mid- 
dle of a sentence, the remaining part was sure 
to be dispatched in short metre. 

Bass-viol, violin, clarionet, and bugle, those 
modern refinements in the music of some coun- 
try congregations, had not yet found their way 
to Westhampton. The only instrumental ac- 
companiment was the pitch-pipe, with which the 
leader gave the key-note of the tune, in a tone 



" Saying the Catechism." 5 

not unlike the modern steam-whistle, and suffi- 
ciently loud to be audible over the whole house. 
Then the large choir, filling the front seats in 
the galleries on three sides of the house, rose 
and poured out their music to such fugue tunes 
as " Majesty," " Bridgewater," and "Coronation," 
and in "strains," too, which, if they were not 
quite so " sweet " as those which " angels use," 
were, we doubt not, oftentimes acceptable to 
Gabriel and to God. 

The pews of the old church were those large, 
high, square pens, which, as the parents sat be- 
low and the children in the galleries, would 
seem to have been constructed for the especial 
convenience of the boys who might be disposed 
to play at meeting. A remedy for this evil, 
however, was at hand ; for if any of the thought- 
less urchins made too free an use of their hiding- 
places, the loud rap and the pointing finger of 
the stern tythingman instantly reduced them to 
order, and fixed upon them a mark of disgrace 
never to be forgotten. 

But we have detained our readers too long 
from "Saying the Catechism." Not that we 
expect that they can "say" it as well, if at all, as 
the youth in Westhampton in those olden times ; 
but we wish to inform them how the heroes of 
our narrative " said " it, as the phrase then was. 



6 Fugitives. 

The Catechism was divided into three parts. 
The first part comprehended all between 
" What is the chief end of man ? " and u the 
first commandment." The second embraced all 
" the commandments," together with " What is 
required" and " What is forbidden" in them all, 
and " The reasons annexed for observing them." 
The third included all from the question, " Is 
any man able perfectly to keep the command- 
ments of God ? " to the end. The Catechism 
was required, by the public sentiment of the 
town, to be perfectly committed to memory, 
and publicly recited in the meeting-house, by all 
the children and youth between the ages of eight 
and fifteen. These public recitations were held 
on three different Sabbaths in the summer of 
every year, with perhaps a fortnight intervening 
between each of them, to allow sufficient time 
for the children to commit to memory the di- 
vision assigned. 

When the time arrived for commencing the 
exercise, the excitement was tremendous. As 
the great battle of Trafalgar was about to com- 
mence between the immense fleets of England 
and France, Lord Nelson displayed at the mast- 
head of his flag-ship, the Victory, the exciting 
proclamation, streaming in the wind, " England 

EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY." That 



"Saying the Catechism." 7 

proclamation awoke all the national enthusiasm 
of his officers and men, and strung every nerve 
for the awful conflict. Scarcely less imperative 
and exciting was the annual announcement from 
the pulpit, by Father Hale, " Sabbath after next, 
the first division of the Catechism will be recited 
here" 

There was " no discharge in that war." Pub- 
lic sentiment demanded the most implicit obedi- 
ence by all concerned. The old Catechisms 
were looked up, new ones bought, and parents 
set their children to the work at once and in ear- 
nest. Every question and every answer must 
be most thoroughly committed to memory, ver- 
batim, et literatim, et punctuatim. The time for 
recitation was at the close of the afternoon ser- 
vice. All the children in the town, dressed 
in their " Sabbath-day clothes," were arranged, 
shoulder to shoulder, the boys on the one side, 
and the girls on the other of the broad aisle, be- 
ginning at the "deacons' seat," and extending 
down that aisle and round through the side 
aisles, as far as was necessary. The parents — 
" children of a larger growth " — crowded the 
pews and galleries, tremblingly anxious that 
their little ones might acquit themselves well. 
Father Hale occupied the pulpit, and put out 
the questions to the children in order, and each 



8 Fugitives. 

one, when the question came to him, was ex- 
pected to wheel out of the line, a la militaire, 
into the broad aisle, and face the minister, and 
make his best obeisance, and answer the ques- 
tion put to him without the slightest mistake. 
To be told, that is, to be corrected by the minis- 
ter, was not a thing to be permitted by any 
child who expected thereafter to have any repu- 
tation in that town for good scholarship. Many 
were the " knees " which " smote one against 
another " during that fearful process. In this 
manner, the three divisions of the Catechism were 
successively recited, and many are the persons 
who recollect, and will long recollect the palpi- 
tating heart, the tremulous voice, the quivering 
frame, with which for several years they went 
through that terrible ordeal. 

But the moral influence of that exercise upon 
the youth of Westhampton, was as salutary as 
its nervous effects were appalling. It indoctri- 
nated them into the great truths of Christianity. 
They did not, of course, descend into the pro- 
found depths of the metaphysics of theology, 
but they became possessed of the system which 
was embraced by their fathers. They were not, 
indeed, prepared to 

" Reason high 
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, 
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute ; " 



" Saying the Catechism." 9 

but their minds were so filled with the outline 
of revealed truth ; they so well understood the 
character and government of God, and the 
method of salvation through a crucified Re- 
deemer, — 

" That, to the height of this great argument, 
They could assert eternal Providence, 
And justify the ways of God to men." 

That practice of " saying the Catechism," 
originated in the high-toned evangelical influ- 
ence of Jonathan Edwards upon Northamp- 
ton and the adjacent region, and it was at last 
superseded by the modern Sabbath School, — a 
substitute, indeed, but whether it is an improve- 
merit is very questionable. That thorough in- 
doctrination of all the people of the town into 
the great system of evangelical truth, was con- 
tinued through the lifetime of more than one 
generation, and therefore long enough to test its 
real effects upon human character and life. The 
result has been that sobriety, morality, and intel- 
ligence are all but universally prevalent. Revi- 
vals of religion have been of frequent occur- 
rence, and more than one third of the popula- 
tion, all told, are now (in 1864), members of the 
Congregational Church. Nine tenths of the 
inhabitants are stated attendants on public wor- 
ship. A larger percentage of the young men, 



io Fugitives. 

for the last fifty years, it is believed, have ob- 
tained a liberal education, have entered the 
learned professions, and have risen to higher 
positions of usefulness and of honor, than can 
be found in any other town in the Common- 
wealth. Property is very equally distributed. 
The prayer of Agur has been answered there. 
Paupers are unknown. As Defoe said of the 
Scotch, the inhabitants are 

" Rich compared to poor, and poor compared to rich/' 

For all that renders this life enjoyable, and espe- 
cially for that immortal hope which casts the 
brightest horoscope on the Eternal Future, we 
know of no community which can show a bet- 
ter record. 

In closing this article, the writer cannot but 
acknowledge his deep obligations to his parents, 
who long since, as he trusts, " passed into the 
skies," for their fidelity in requiring him, much 
against his will, to commit to memory the " As- 
sembly's Catechism," and to " say " it publicly 
for six or seven years in succession, in the old 
meeting-house in Westhampton, amid trem- 
blings and agitations which he can never cease 
to remember. 



PECCADILLOES OF THE PULPIT. 

MORE than half a century has passed away 
since John Foster wrote his celebrated 
Essay on the " Causes which render Evangelical 
Religion unacceptable to persons of Cultivated 
Taste." The influence of that Essay upon the 
pulpit, both in Great Britain and the United 
States, has been by no means inconsiderable. It 
has made the clergy more attentive to the man- 
ner in which their public functions should be dis- 
charged. It has promoted improvement in the 
style of delivery, and in the literary and rhetor- 
ical qualities of the matter pronounced. The 
aesthetics of the pulpit have undergone a most 
desirable change. Besides, within the period 
referred to, the intellectual culture of the people 
has made decided progress. Education has been 
widely disseminated. Matters of taste, in the 
style and manner of public speakers, now meet 
with very general attention. In most of the 
religious congregations of our country, even in 
its less cultivated districts, there are individuals 



1 2 Fugitives. 

who are better acquainted with Blair and Camp- 
bell and Whately, than with Calvin and Ed- 
wards and Dwight. They are better critics of 
style than of theology. They will sooner detect 
a grammatical blunder, or a flaw in the argu- 
ment, than an error in doctrine; and such rhetori- 
cal blemishes, such violations of correct literary 
taste, will oftentimes neutralize the influence of 
the most orthodox discourse. A preacher who 
is found tripping in these minor matters, will be 
likely to enjoy but little leniency in the judg- 
ment of those whose canons of criticism are 
often violated. " Talents, angel-bright," will 
make but a partial atonement, in their severe 
estimate, for those blemishes of style and man- 
ner which have excited their disgust. The mel- 
ancholy consequences of such a state of mind, 
in such hearers of the Gospel, will be quite likely 
to reach immeasurably beyond the present life. 
The subject, then, is of the gravest character. 

We would further remark, that we do not 
now intend to consider how seriously Evangelical 
Religion is affected by those errors which abound 
in some of the pulpits of Protestant Christen- 
dom. We assume, in this article, as a postulate, 
that the pure Gospel of Christ is preached ; that 
those views of it which are commonly styled 
Evangelical are presented ; and our object is to 



Peccadilloes of the Pulpit, 1 3 

point out some of the Peccadilloes of the Pulpit 
under such ministrations. Manners have been 
styled "the minor morals;" and in these, in rela- 
tion to preaching, there are several classes of faults. 
Some relate to the style of writing, others to the 
manner of delivery ; — some to the selection of sub- 
jects, and others to the esthetics of the preacher. 
With regard to the style of composition, there 
are certain cant, ungrammatical, and unrhetorical 
phrases, which have crept into current use, but 
which are decidedly objectionable on the score 
of good taste. Some of these phrases are the 
following : — " Being renewedly made sensible ; " 
" having his mind drawn " to this or that thing ; 
" feeling a sense of duty ; " " seeing, or not see- 
ing his way clear" into this or that matter; 
praying that "the Holy Spirit may rest down 
upon us ; " that He " would solemnize our 
minds ; " that He " would fit and prepare us for 
death ; " that He " would appear in our midst ; " 
that "we maybe no longer cold and indiffer- 
ent ; " that we may " live more unreservedly to 
the glory of God ; " that we may be " more per- 
fectly devoted to His service ; " that we may 
" live more entirely " to His praise ; and that 
He would spread the Gospel over " the lengths 
and breadths " of the earth. An incorrect col- 
location of adjectives is of frequent occurrence : 



] 4 Fugitives. 

such as " strong points of resemblance " for 
"points of strong resemblance," and a "broth- 
er's dying care " for " a dying brother's care." 
In these cases, it is not the " points " which 
are " strong," but the " resemblance ; " not the 
" care " of the brother which is dying," but the 
" brother " himself. The phrases, " propitiate the 
divine favor" and "propitiate the divine wrath," 
are not unfrequently heard from the pulpit ; but 
it is clear that, as " favor " and " wrath " are op- 
posites, both of them cannot be propitiated. 

These few examples of blemishes in style are 
specified to illustrate the position we have taken. 
This list might be extended indefinitely, but our 
object simply is to arrest attention to the subject, 
and a few cases of glaring impropriety will, per- 
haps, be as impressive as a longer inventory. 
And in addition to the frequent use of phrases 
which are violations of grammatical and rhetor- 
ical propriety, there are large classes of hack- 
neyed and technical sentences, which are equally 
obnoxious to a pure literary taste. In many ser- 
mons, too, and especially in those of the younger 
clergy, there is sometimes such a superabun- 
dance of words that the sense is obscured. Bax- 
ter says, " It takes all our learning to make things 
plain." A person of cultivated intellectual pow- 
ers, but of great devoutness of mind, and one, 



Peccadilloes of the Pulpit. 15 

too, who abjures the spirit of criticism in the 
house of God, will, nevertheless, in spite of him- 
self, find his attention diverted to the style and 
manner of the speaker, by these repeated viola- 
tions of literary propriety. His taste will get 
the better of his devotion, and he soon becomes 
so much disgusted as to seek another church or 
another pastor. This slovenly style of writing 
we regard as the more inexcusable, on account 
of the superior literary advantages which are 
within the reach of the clergy of the present 
day. Most of them have enjoyed the very best 
instruction in their preparatory, collegiate, and 
professional, courses of study ; and they have 
entered the pulpit awake to the fact that the 
standard of popular education is already high, 
and that it is constantly rising. They must, 
therefore, be aware, that to meet the high, but 
reasonable expectations of enlightened congre- 
gations, no small draft will be made upon the 
literary treasures they have so long been accu- 
mulating, and which are supposed to be still 
augmenting. Those drafts they must be pre- 
pared, in commercial phrase, to meet at sight; 
and if they are (to continue the figure) allowed 
to be dishonored, and especially if such failures 
to meet accepted obligations are of frequent oc- 
currence, the delinquent must fall into profes- 



1 6 Fugitives. 

sional bankruptcy. There are no underwriters 
who can prevent the melancholy result. It is 
to this source that we trace no small part of that 
instability in the pastoral office which has be- 
come a matter of general remark and lamenta- 
tion, but for which no adequate remedy has yet 
been discovered. 

We do not subscribe to the sentiments of a 
recent English reviewer upon this subject, unless 
they are received with many grains of allow- 
ance. 

44 It is one misfortune," he remarks, 44 of a 
generally educated and highly polished state of 
society that men of the highest talent and most 
cultivated minds are often fettered by a delicate 
and timid sensitiveness, which renders them 
afraid of committing their reputation, or incur- 
ring the accusation of bad taste ; and that, in 
consequence, they seldom venture beyond the 
verge of what is calm and equable either in 
writing or in speaking. They write with too 
much caution to be able to write with fire, and 
in trying to be safe, they fail to be impressive. 
And what is the consequence ? Why, that those 
men dare the most who are least capable of dar- 
ing with success. The style which is not haz- 
arded at the church, is torn into tatters at the 
conventicle ; and the magnificent imagery and 



Peccadilloes of the Pulpit. 17 

strong language of our old divines are succeeded 
by lachrymose harangues at a fashionable chapel, 
or the rhapsodical flights of the great Caledonian 
Apostle, who, for a time, drew ministers of state 
and leaders of ton from May Fair to Hatton 
Garden." 

Now all this is based on the assumption that 
a truly enlightened audience is not liberal and 
just in its criticisms, — indeed, that it is captious 
in proportion to its intelligence. We will not 
be so unjust to intelligent men as to believe 
such a doctrine. A really enlightened mind is 
liberal and generous in its views. It will, if the 
heart be right, encourage, not repress, the most 
powerful enforcements of divine truth. We had 
much rather fall into the hands of such a large- 
hearted and intelligent catholicity, than into that 
narrow, flippant hypercriticism, which is too self- 
conceited to learn and too jealous to be just. 

It is almost a truism to remark, that the lit- 
erary character of the pulpit ought to rise in the 
ratio of the popular enlightenment. The style 
of Edwards and Owen and Charnock will not 
answer at the present day. The pulpit cannot 
maintain its hold upon the public mind unless it 
commands the public respect. It must, there- 
fore, advance with the age ; and, instead of being 
jealous of the elevated literary taste of some of 
3 



1 8 Fugitives. 

the auditory, it ought to hail that taste as an im- 
portant auxiliary to its own influence, and press 
forward in the career of improvement. The 
important truth would thus be illustrated, that 
an enlightened pulpit is both the cause and the 
effect of its own hallowed radiance. 

Another class of faults pertain to the manner 
of delivery. 

Appropriateness of gesture is a rhetorical grace 
which frequently receives little attention. We 
recently listened to a preacher who uniformly 
made an emphatic gesture in announcing the 
heads of his discourse. Such an announcement 
is impressive, if at all, by the terseness of the 
terms in which it is conveyed, or by the unex- 
pected novelty and force of the thought itself. 
It does not suppose any unusual emotion in the 
speaker, or anything which calls for a gesture. 
On the contrary, the expectation of the audience 
forbids it. Another preacher we have heard, 
who extended his hand upward and with great 
violence, when he was describing his hearers as 
going down to hell. 

Superabundance of gesture is often a fault, espe- 
cially of young clergymen. In some cases it is 
so incessant, that, like the heat-lightning of sum- 
mer, it neither warms nor alarms ; and the hearer 
is led to ask himself, What can be the cause of 



Peccadilloes of the Pulpit. l 9 

the preacher's unaccountable hostility to the " cir- 
cumambient atmosphere?" Such excessive ges- 
ticulation is quite meaningless. Much of it is 
necessarily inappropriate, and therefore ineffec- 
tive. 

The entire absence of gesture is nearly as un- 
philosophical as its redundance. Gesture is the 
language of nature. It is the common vernac- 
ular tongue of all nations. Savage as well as 
civilized men always use it when they are 
strongly moved. Like tears, it is the universal 
exponent of deep emotion. A statue in the 
pulpit would therefore be nearly as appropriate 
an incumbent of that sacred place, as a living 
preacher without action. President Edwards 
might hold an audience, in a discourse of an 
hour's length, without moving an arm or lifting 
a finger; but it was done by a cogency of logic, 
a strength of reasoning, and an impassioned 
earnestness, rarely equalled. It is an unques- 
tionable fact, too, that Edwards himself would 
have been far more effective, if, to the force of 
his extraordinary argumentative powers, he had 
added a highly rhetorical manner. Plato says 
that the Greek Rhapsodists could not recite 
Homer without almost falling into convulsions. 
But Addison says of the preachers of his day : 
" They stand stock still in the pulpit, and 



20 Fugitives. 

will not so much as move a finger to set off the 
best sermons in the world. An untravelled Eng- 
lishman, who has not seen an Italian in the pul- 
pit, will not know what to make of that noble 
gesture in Raphael's picture of St. Paul preach- 
ing at Athens, where the apostle is represented 
as lifting up both his arms and pouring out the 
thunder of his rhetoric amidst an audience of 
pagan philosophers." Appropriate gesticulation 
being, then, the enforcement which nature al- 
ways gives to sentiments uttered under strong 
emotion, can never be neglected without impair- 
ing, most essentially, the impression of a dis- 
course. 

Sir Charles Bell has written an able work on 
" The Mechanism of the Human Hand," and 
we wish that some scientific rhetorician would 
prepare as excellent a treatise on its powers of 
expression. Next to the " human face divine," 
the hand is the most expressive part of our cor- 
poreal frame. The clenched fist, the pointing 
finger, the adoring hand, the imploring hand, 
the inviting and the repelling hand, are only a 
few of the numerous forms of speech it is able 
to assume. Strange as it may seem, some 
preachers never get command of their hands, 
and few have fully considered the great variety 
and the amazing strength of emotions they are 



Peccadilloes of the Pulpit* 21 

able to express. The almost total neglect of 
the moral power of the hand is one of the great- 
est defects in our systems of education. The 
preacher who carefully studies this subject, who 
rejects all uncouth and unappropriate gesticula- 
tion, and brings into habitual use all of its magic 
influence in moving an audience, will find that 
he has added a wonderful executive power to 
the eloquence of the pulpit. 

Some clergymen, too, are in the habit of pray- 
ing with their eyes open. This looks as if the 
suppliant thought more of his auditory than of 
" Him who hears prayer," and was more curious 
to see who are present, than anxious how he 
shall secure the ear of Heaven. This habit vio- 
lates that nice sense of propriety which always 
exists in a cultivated religious assembly. 

Others are in the habit of rarely looking their 
audience directly in the face. In the most impas- 
sioned parts of the discourse, their eyes are often 
mechanically averted from their hearers to cer- 
tain quarters of the house, and cast a vacant 
stare at vacancy itself. No man can be truly 
eloquent under the dominion of such a habit. 
Real eloquence requires an active sympathy be- 
tween the speaker and his audience. It is there, 
if anywhere, that heart meets heart and u deep 
calleth unto deep." Demosthenes was eloquent 



22 Fugitives, 

when he was urging his countrymen to oppose 
the invasion of Philip, and when, by the fire of 
his eyes, as well as by the thunder of his voice, 
he electrified the martial spirit of the Athenians, 
and was, in turn, electrified by them ; but he 
was not eloquent, when, with pebbles in his 
mouth, and with no living audience before him, 
to see and to be seen, to inspire and to be in- 
spired, he harangued the waves of the ocean. 

A proper degree of rapidity in the delivery of a 
discourse enters very deeply into its effectiveness. 
Young preachers are apt to be too rapid, and 
aged preachers too slow, in their enunciation. 
Constitutional temperament also materially af- 
fects the rate of delivery. Some are so phleg- 
matic that they seem never to have formed the 
acquaintanceship of emotion, and others are so 
intensely mercurial as to discredit their judg- 
ment. Either extreme is fatal to true eloquence. 

A lack of judgment in the selection of topics 
for the pulpit, is sometimes another serious 
infelicity. The theory of some particular 
school of theology, metaphysics, politics, war, 
slavery, or other exciting topics of the day — 
form the staple of quite too many sermons. 
The theological views or notions of reform, 
which the hearers come to entertain, will, of 
course, be more or less distorted and crotchety 



Peccadilloes of the Pulpit, 23 

and controversial, and they will feel a stronger 
desire to pronounce correctly the Shibboleth of 
a party, than to embrace the " great salvation." 
The present alarming paucity of revivals of re- 
ligion may be traced, it is believed, in no small 
part, to this cause. Subjects of exciting but 
secular interest have of late occupied so large 
and disproportioned a place in ministrations of 
the sanctuary, that we have little reason to ex- 
pect the days of Griffin and Nettleton to return, 
till the pulpit is reformed, and the conversion of 
sinners and the sanctification of Christians come 
again to be its paramount and all-engrossing 
concern. 

In the devotional exercises of the sanctuary, 
the prayers of some clergymen are little else 
than a stereotyped formula of words, from which 
the most extraordinary circumstances in the state 
of the congregation hardly induce them to de- 
viate. Their hearers can predict beforehand, 
with great accuracy, how they will begin, and 
proceed, and end. The route over which they 
travel is well known, and the track thoroughly 
beaten. This practice may be illustrated by the 
anecdote of the boys, in the early days of New 
England, who absented themselves from the 
worship of the family, but who, to avoid mer- 
ited punishment, intended to enter the room just 



24 Fugitives. 

before their father had finished his supplications. 
As they approached the house, one of them went 
up to the window to listen. " John," said the 
other, " has father got nearly through ? " " O 
no," was the reply, " we can play a good while 
longer ; he has n't got to the Jews yet." 

Similar instances of misjudgment are very fre- 
quently seen in the practice of giving out a 
much larger proportion of hymns to be sung than 
of psalms. The hymns, in our books of psalm- 
ody, are perhaps adapted to a greater variety of 
occasions than the psalms ; but for the ordinary 
purposes of devotion, the psalms, being more 
lyrical and more instinct with the spirit of holy 
praise, are much superior. Yet, in some pulpits, 
the use of the psalms is nearly discontinued, to 
the great detriment of spirituality in the churches. 

The last class of faults in the pulpit to which 
we shall refer, may be denominated asthetical. 
They belong to the general appearance of the 
preacher as he presents himself before his con- 
gregation, and may inhere in his gait, his dress, 
his wide-awake hat, his shawl, his large white 
handkerchief displayed on the top of the pulpit, 
his mode of enunciation and pronunciation, and 
his general bearing in conducting the services of 
the sanctuary. These infelicities of manner are 
too "numerous to mention." We would not, 



Peccadilloes of the Pulpit. 25 

indeed, stretch or cut down the physical or men- 
tal idiosyncrasies of different men to any Pro- 
crustean dimensions. We admire nature in the 
pulpit. We would have every preacher be him- 
self, and not another. We have no patience 
with the attempts often made by third or fourth 
rate men to ape the manners of their superiors. 
They are always failures, and failures which ren- 
der such men ridiculous. 

But the credit and influence of the clergy im- 
peratively demand, that all those habits which 
savor of the affected, the uncouth, and the clown- 
ish ; — all those manners, which, by common 
consent, are deemed inconsistent with the sobri- 
ety and dignity of the sacred office ; — ■ all those 
improprieties of bearing which offend good taste 
and serious piety, be forever discarded from the 
pulpit. We are well aware that habits are in- 
deed "second natures." They are inveterate. 
It is not easy for the " Ethiopian to change his 
skin, or the leopard his spots." And yet we 
confess our surprise that some clergymen are so 
neglectful of their duty in these matters, so in- 
attentive to their habits in the pulpit, that they 
seem to cherish them the more for the remon- 
strances they receive from their intelligent hear- 
ers and their clerical brethren. They seem to 
think that all attention to manner in the pulpit 
4 



26 Fugitives. 

is beneath the dignity of their holy vocation, 
and inconsistent with fidelity to God and the 
souls of men. But this impression betrays more 
of the spirit of self-complacency, than of that 
due regard to public sentiment which is charac- 
teristic of all truly independent minds. A per- 
sistent inattention to blemishes, often pointed 
out, will be likely soon to leave a man behind 
his age. The world will go on without him; 
and before he has lived out half his days, he 
finds himself displaced from his parish, and un- 
able to find another where his offensive habits 
will be tolerated. 

In closing this article we cannot but express 
the hope, that these criticisms will be regarded 
as emanating only from the purest friendship for 
the clergy. They are one of the brightest or- 
naments of the age, but we would have it im- 
maculate. We hope, too, that none will sup- 
pose that we attach a higher importance to man- 
ner in the pulpit, than to the matter which is 
there presented. We go for strong, masculine 
good sense, for cogent argument, for solid learn- 
ing, and for an earnest enforcement of the great 
doctrines of grace. But we have long been 
persuaded, that, if to all these there could be 
added a highly finished elocution, the ministra- 
tions of the pulpit would be incomparably more 



Peccadilloes of the Pulpit. 27 

successful. The late Dr. Porter, of Andover, 
was, perhaps, as faultless a model as our country 
has produced, but we care not how many of the 
clergy rival the more magnificent rhetoric of 
Griffin. Society must be taken as it is. With 
the indiscriminating multitude, manner has far 
greater influence than the purest doctrine. Even 
tinsel is sometimes more fascinating than dia- 
monds. While, then, " the weightier matters of 
the law, judgment, mercy, and faith," should 
ever occupy the first place in the thoughts of 
God's ambassadors, their success in urging these 
momentous themes may depend entirely, under 
Him, upon the modus in which it is done. 

The following anecdote of Robert Roberts, 
one of the great Welsh evangelists, is a fitting 
illustration of the high importance of manner 
to power in the pulpit. On one occasion he was 
preaching in Anglesea, and two boys, one of 
whom had never seen him, went to hear him. 
When Roberts rose, there was an intense ear- 
nestness in his countenance. He read his text, 
but appeared embarrassed. Soon, however, he 
recovered himself, his utterance became easier, 
his voice clearer, and his look more and more 
vehement. He went on, seized fast hold of the 
very soul of the assembly and swayed it to and fro 
as the hurricane the forest ; some fainted, others 



28 Fugitives. 

cried aloud, and he himself, with a voice like 
God's trumpet, thrilled the audience through 
and through. The boy who had never heard 
hinrbefore, with face as pale as a corpse, turned 
to his companion and asked, " Is he a man or 
an angel ? " " Why ! an angel ; did n't you 
know ? " " No, indeed, I did n't know. Great 
heaven ! but how much better an angel preaches 
than a man ! " 




THE MERITS OF THE SABBATH HYMN 
BOOK. 

BY PROFESSORS PARK, PHELPS, AND MASON, 
AND OF THE 

MEANS WHICH ARE EMPLOYED TO INTRO- 
DUCE IT INTO THE CHURCHES.i 

IN common with many others, we have re- 
ceived a pamphlet of forty-eight pages, from 
Mason Brothers, New York, entitled, " An Ad- 
vertisement, with Opinions from Distinguished 
Sources, and Notices from Periodicals, of The 
Sabbath Hymn Book" published by the same 
house. The pamphlet is made up principally 
of the recommendations of various clergymen, 
to whom copies of the book had been sent, and 
their opinions of its character requested. The 
discerning public, which is a party most deeply 

A This Article, which originally appeared in a pamphlet form, 
was prepared and read before an Association of Ministers, in the 
ordinary course of their literary exercises. The members unani- 
mously requested that it might be given to the public. 



30 Fugitives. 

interested in the question of the acceptance or 
rejection of a new manual of praise in our 
churches, will of course give due credit to the 
recommendations of distinguished men, after 
considering the circumstances under which they 
have been obtained. That those before us were 
solicited, and not spontaneously offered, can ad- 
mit of no doubt, and that recommendations of 
almost anything and in any quantity, can be 
easily procured, is a matter of every-day remark. 
But the fair exhibit which we now propose to 
make of the Subject of Church Psalmody requires 
us to say, and we say it with all sincerity, that 
Mason Brothers have the same right to obtain 
recommendations of their books in this way, 
and then, in turn, to publish them to the world, 
for the purpose of manufacturing a public sen- 
timent in favor of their wares, as any other book- 
selling establishment in the country. Whether 
it be in good taste or in bad taste, whether it is 
dealing with the public fairly or unfairly, they 
have as good a right as others to create a mar- 
ket for their books in this form. This course 
has long been practised by the trade ; indeed, all 
who are acquainted with the facts in such cases 
know that it is what is familiarly called " one of 
the tricks of the trade." We therefore entirely 
exonerate Mason Brothers from the suspicion 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 31 

that they have taken any unusual course in 
sounding their trumpet in favor of the Sab- 
bath Hymn Book. 

Nor do we think that the course of Mason 
Brothers, in sending a copy of the book to such 
men, as, by their official, or social, or theolog- 
ical, or blood relations to the editors, might be 
expected, a priori, to return a favorable response, 
is an unusual one. For who could better be ex- 
pected to respond favorably, than those whose 
affiliations with the parties concerned are of the 
most intimate character ? This is in entire 
harmony with the dictates of human nature. 
Whether this was the wisest course, if the ob- 
ject were to obtain opinions of the book which 
are purely unbiased, is another question ; but no 
question at all, if the object was to obtain favor- 
able opinions at any rate. It is therefore our 
judgment that the house of Mason Brothers 
understand their business, and that they have 
resorted to no unusual means to give a wide 
and favorable publicity to the Sabbath Hymn 
Book. 

But, with ail these admissions, we still hold 
that this sort of machinery for selling books is 
a virtual, if not an actual imposition upon the 
public. If a book possesses intrinsic merit, and 
especially if its merits place it unquestionably 



32 Fugitives. 

above all others of its kind, the ordinary means 
of advertising in the newspapers will soon dis- 
close the fact to the world, and the demand for 
it will shortly equal its merits. The enginery 
employed to get the Sabbath Hymn Book 
favorably before the community, though not un- 
usual, is highly questionable on moral grounds; 
and, besides, it is a sort of confession, on the 
part of the publishers, that it has not merit 
enough of its own to make its way to the pat- 
ronage of the public. The extreme pains they 
have taken to forestall public sentiment in be- 
half of this book, by soliciting the opinions of 
some seventy clergymen, is presumptive evi- 
idence of their apprehension, that, without such 
special effort, it may long encumber the shelves 
of their warehouse. 

Let us now pass to an examination of some of 
the recommendations themselves. And here we 
premise, that, in our opinion, the preparation of 
a Hymn Book for our churches, — a book which 
is to affect the taste and modify the piety of alb 
succeeding generations, — is an undertaking of 
the very gravest character. And scarcely less im- 
pressive is the responsibility of giving currency 
to such a book, by a deliberate recommendation 
of it to the churches. It is comparatively irre- 
sponsible to recommend almost any other book, 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 33 

for if the public find it to be worthless, or even 
injurious, it can easily be laid aside, or, in the 
order of events, it will be superseded by the 
next newest book, which will be sure to appear 
next week. Not so, however, with a new Hymn 
Book for use in our churches. Such books, we 
are glad to know, are slowly and cautiously 
adopted, but when they are adopted, they are 
perhaps as reluctantly abandoned, even though 
they are found to be quite unfit for their pur- 
pose. And, besides, the expense of a new book 
for an entire congregation, — amounting in most 
cases to some hundreds, and in many cases to 
some thousands of dollars, — is an item in the 
acocunt which is by no means to be overlooked. 
The formal recommendation of a new Hymn 
Book is, therefore, a matter of the most serious 
responsibility ; and no man, with all this respon- 
sibility before him, can possibly give such a re- 
commendation in haste, or with levity or par- 
tiality. 

In the light of these general and obvious 
principles, let us look at some of the recom- 
mendations in the pamphlet before us, and try 
to ascertain their actual value, and the weight 
they ought to have with the public. 

One pastor says, " I have not had opportunity 
to compare it (the Sabbath Hymn Book) with 



34 Fugitives. 

some other hymn books lately published, nor do 
I care to" This is perhaps the coolest recom- 
mendation of all. But with what propriety, 
and, we will ask, with what sense, can a man 
recommend any book as the very best in the 
market, when he admits that he has " not com- 
pared it with others" of its class, and flippantly 
tells the public that he " does not care to " do 
so ? Is the intelligence of the Christian com- 
munity to be thus cavalierly addressed, and is it 
to be thus wantonly underrated *? If a man does 
not respect himself, he ought at least to profess 
some respect for others, whom he would influ- 
ence fay his opinions. But does he expect that 
his dictum will be accepted by the churches as 
an intelligent indorsement of the book, when he 
glories in the confession that he has not " com- 
pared " it with others, and with singular effron- 
tery tells us, that, if he had the time and oppor- 
tunity, he would not desire to make such a 
comparison ? The real value of such testimony 
is easily estimated. 

Another pastor, after a most unqualified re- 
commendation of the work, says : " I rejoice to 
believe that our unquiet hymnology will now 
have rest for a whole generation. He must be 
a fastidious man, who, having seen this book, 
shall wait for a better ; he must be a bold man 



The Sabbath Hymn Booh. 35 

who shall offer the public another during the 
present century." 

If the commendation by the clergyman first 
mentioned is sufficiently cool, this, it must be 
admitted, is sufficiently extravagant. If our 
hymnology for some time past has been "un- 
quiet," we ask, Where are the symptoms that it 
is now subsiding into repose ? for it is patent 
to the most casual observer, that, since the pub- 
lication of the Sabbath Hymn Book, a more 
active and heated discussion of the whole sub- 
ject of " our hymnology " has been awakened, 
than has occurred for a century before. The 
new Hymn Book has warm friends, and equally 
warm opposers. Some pastors (we hope the 
number is small) would introduce it into their 
churches at once, and without " caring to com- 
pare its merits " with those of others ; but many 
more will never introduce it at all. Such is the 
"godly jealousy" of many pastors and many 
churches upon a subject so vital as this to a 
healthful religious progress, that we expect that 
the hymn books lately published, and all others 
which anybody may be " bold " enough to " offer 
the public during the present century," will be 
subjected to a far more rigorous examination 
than has heretofore befallen this class of publi- 
cations. It seems to us, with all these facts 



36 Fugitives, 

in view, that, whether for good or evil, our 
" unquiet hymnology," instead of being put to 
" rest " by the appearance of the Sabbath Hymn 
Book, is likely to become more disturbed than 
ever. 

With regard to the remark of this pastor, 
" he must be a fastidious man, who, having seen 
this book, shall wait for a better, and he must 
be a bold man who shall offer the public another 
during the present century," we have only to 
say, that sober sense is sacrificed to an oracular 
Johnsonian antithesis — that the rhetoric is bet- 
ter than the judgment. 

Some of the recommendations in this pam- 
phlet were written with evident caution, and 
with many qualifying and saving epithets, which 
do credit to the judgment and prudence of their 
authors. Others speak of the book in that gen- 
eralizing way which says that the writers are 
unwilling to withhold a recommendation, and 
about as unwilling to give it ; and others com- 
mend it for the value of its elaborate indexes, 
its devotional spirit, its doctrinal accuracy, and 
the large number of hymns which contain direct 
addresses to God. 

With respect to the poetical and lyrical char- 
acteristics of this book, which, next to its relig- 
ious, are confessedly of the highest importance, 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 37 

one pastor says, " there are no hymns which can- 
not be used," and " there does not seem to be a 
single hymn which the most fastidious taste could 
refuse to use in the house of the Lord." Another 
affirms it to be "free from antiquated lumber." 
Others, with more discrimination, commend, in 
general, its adaptedness to musical expression 
and effect. It is to be remembered, however, 
that some of the books now in use in our sanc- 
tuaries were prepared with special reference to 
this latter point, and possess, in that regard, high 
degrees of merit. 

As to the very numerous alterations of hymns 
in this volume, the writers in the pamphlet under 
consideration express a wide variety of opinion. 
One of them says, " I am against all mutilations 
of hymns, from beginning to end," Another 
says, "the editors have not made an alteration 
which I have reason to regret" Another re- 
marks that "the alterations of original hymns 
are very rare and judicious." Another says, " they 
are not mutilated by needless alterations. Where 
it was possible to retain the author's own words, 
they have been, as a general thing, retained." 
This last expression means, if it means any- 
thing, that, in those few cases where it was not 
possible to retain the author's own words, they 
have nevertheless been retained. To such ver- 



38 Fugitives. 

biage, or rather nonsense, as this, is a sensible 
man driven, in his special pleading in defence 
of the many hundreds of alterations which are 
found in the Sabbath Hymn Book. 

But this pastor says, the hymns "have not 
been mutilated by needless alterations." But 
who is to judge what were needed or not? 
Why, he will doubtless reply, " the editors 
themselves must be the. judges ; " which is the 
same as to say that all the alterations which 
they have made, were necessary to be made, 
because they thought them necessary to be made. 
This is reasoning in a circle with a vengeance. 
It is the same as saying, the editors are to be 
justified in their numerous mutilations, because 
they have made them. It is bringing the cause 
to justify the effect. According to this logic, 
any effect can be justified which any man may 
see fit to perpetrate. If, in his estimation, a thing 
is necessary to be done, it is therefore, ipso facto, 
to he done. 

The " New York Musical Review," of which 
Mr. Lowell Mason, who is one of the editors 
of this Hymn Book, is also one of the conduc- 
tors, in a review which is copied by his sons into 
this pamphlet, not only justifies all the alterations 
of the hymns, but wishes that many more had 
been made. 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 39 

It is quite evident, from this wide discrepancy 
of views upon the propriety of altering the lit- 
erary productions of others, that the whole sub- 
ject of such revisions needs a thorough and fun- 
damental examination. There is a question of 
moral honesty underlying this practice, upon 
which we hope some casuist will soon appear 
to enlighten the world. To mutilate the pro- 
ductions of the departed, who have given them 
their most careful consideration, and left them 
in just the state in which they wished them to 
appear to all subsequent generations, is, in our 
judgment, little else than literary felony. And 
this is the conclusion to which it would seem 
that all honest and intelligent men. must come, 
when the subject has been duly examined in the 
light of its moral aspects. 

Let us now proceed to an examination of the 
book itself. Whatever may be the general prin- 
ciples which should guide compilers in mutilat- 
ing the productions of others, if such mutilations 
can ever be justified, specific cases can be judged 
of by those canons of criticism which have stood 
the test of time, and which are accepted by all 
literary men. To these canons we now propose 
to bring some of the multiform alterations which 
we have noticed in the Sabbath Hymn Book. 
Nor can the oft-quoted maxim, Nil disputandum 



4-0 Fugitives. 

de gustihus, be admitted to set aside the decisions 
of common sense and acknowledged literary pro- 
priety. If some alterations are admissible, it is 
at any rate clear that they ought not to be car- 
ried so far, as has been done in some cases in 
this book, that the reputed author, were he alive, 
could not recognize his own productions ; and 
it is equally clear, that, after they have been so 
changed that he would not know them himself, 
it is a gross fraud and abuse to credit him with 
their paternity. Thus, Pope's magnificent poem 
on the " Messiah," written in lines of ten sylla- 
bles, is reduced to a long-metre hymn of remark- 
able tameness, and then, as if to add insult to 
injury, the emasculated production is ascribed 
to Pope himself. With what just indignation 
would that great poet, if he could now appear 
on the earth, remonstrate against the injustice 
done to his fame, by such an entire remoulding 
of that splendid work, and the ascription to him 
of a bantling, from which every sensibility of 
his fine poetic taste would have recoiled. 

Equally unpardonable is the alteration of Mrs. 
Steele's sweet and highly lyrical hymn, — 

" The Saviour! Oh! what endless charms." 

The first three stanzas of this hymn, which 
are among the most beautiful in the language, 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 4 L 

and have long been associated in the minds of 
Christians with their holiest enjoyments, both in 
the sanctuary and the closet, — have been en- 
tirely omitted; and three others, new, strange, 
and every way inferior, have been substituted 
in their place. And this substitution has been 
made, as it appears to us, not only in violation 
of every dictate of correct taste, but in viola- 
tion, too, of the excellent rule laid down by the 
editors themselves in their Introduction, that, in 
a manual of worship, other things being equal, 
those hymns should be preferred " which are 
direct addresses to the Most High." In this 
case they have discarded the greater part of a 
hymn which opens with a sublime apostrophe 
of the " Saviour," and substituted stanzas which 
contain no address to Him, " direct " or indirect. 
And yet, as if to make inconsistency the rule 
and not the exception, they ascribe the new 
hymn to "Mrs. Steele!" It is difficult to 
characterize such radical alterations of hymns 
as these, in the proper phrases of disapproval, 
without exposing one's self, however unjustly, 
to the cant reproach of being " captious " or 
" carping." We hope to employ only the most 
courteous euphemism, whenever we are com- 
pelled to express our dissent from the taste and 
judgment of these eminent compilers. 



42 Fugitives, 

In Montgomery's sublime paean, 

" Hark ! the song of Jubilee," 

we find the line, 

"With illimitable sway," 

altered, as it was in the Church Psalmody of 
which Mr. Lowell Mason was one of the ed- 
itors, into the pleonasm, 

" With supreme, unbounded sway." 

A sway which is " supreme," is " unbounded," of 
course. 

And, in like manner, in Robinson's fine hymn, 
so redolent of the Christian's gratitude for salva- 
tion by grace, 

" Come, thou Fount of every blessing," 

the stanza, 

" Teach me some melodious sonnet, 
Sung by flaming tongues above ; 
Praise the mount, I 'm fixed upon it, 
Mount of Thy redeeming love ; " 

is changed into the following : — 

" Teach me some melodious measure, 
Sung by flaming tongues above ; 
Oh the vast, the boundless treasure 
Of Thy free, unchanging love." 

In respect of spirit and genuine eloquence, 
this alteration clearly belongs in the category of 
" reduction descending." 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 43 

The editors especially deprecate "rhythmical 
sermons, narrative, expository, or didactic " in a 
hymn book; and yet we find in their book a 
much larger number of hymns than in any other 
with which we are acquainted, where all lyrical 
expression is destroyed, by attempting to cramp 
the doctrines of Calvinism into the rhythm of 
poetic numbers. In the following cases, we 
have three " rhythmical sermons " on the atone- 
ment : — 

" His cross was ours, and we with Him 
Were buried in one grave." 

" Thou to our woe who down didst come, 
Who one with us wouldst be." 

" Such was Thy grace, that for our sakes 
Thou didst from heaven come down, 
Our mortal flesh and blood partake, 
In all our misery one." 

Please attend, now, to a " rhythmical sermon " 
on disinterested love to God : — 

" I love Thee, O my God, but not 

For what I hope thereby ; 
Nor yet because who love Thee not 

Must die eternally. 
I love Thee, O my God, and still 

I ever will love Thee, 
Solely because my God Thou art 

Who first hast loved me. 



44 Fugitives. 

" Then shall I not, O Saviour mine ! 

Shall I not love Thee well ? 
Not with the hope of winning heaven, 

Nor of escaping hell ; 
Not with the hope of earning aught, 

Nor seeking a reward ; 
But freely, fully, as Thyself 

Hast loved me, O Lord ! " 

We doubt whether Hopkins or Bellamy could 
have adjusted all these points, with more formal 
accuracy or more prosaic stiffness, in their " di- 
dactic " sermons. 

In all these cases, and in several others, the 
" singing" most clearly "preaches " in violation 
of the editors' own rule, and of all correct taste. 
If such stanzas are " the true outflowings of sa- 
cred poetry," then all the established canons of 
judgment are at fault. If " men sing them be- 
cause they must sing them," we think the neces- 
sity which is laid upon us is of a direr sort than 
Augustine, or Calvin, or Edwards ever dreamed 
of. 

To say nothing of the poetry of the following 
couplet, which is bad enough, if anybody will 
point out its sense to us, we will confess to his 
superior penetration : — 

"He can suffice to these good things, 
Whose mind with Christ is one." 

And we will make a similar acknowledgment, 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 45 

if any one will do us the like favor with regard 
to the following stanza : — 

" But not this fleshly robe alone 
Shall link us, Lord, to Thee ; 
Nor always in the tear and groan, 
Shall the dear kindred be." 

How elevated and correct could that taste for 
lyric poetry have been, which admitted into the 
book such lines as these : — 

" Thou tookest woe and death from us, 
And we receive Thy heaven." 

" Lord, am I precious in Thy sight ? 
Lord, wouldst thou have me Thine ? " 

" Lord, dost Thou sweetly urge and press 
My soul Thy heaven to win." 

" Lord, dost Thou love my holiness ? 
Lord, dost Thou love my sin." 

The following specimen, and very many oth- 
ers, belong to the same order of taste : — 

" Brightest of all on earth that 's bright, 
Come shine aivay my sin." 

Whether the process of " shining away sin " is 
a moral, or astronomical, or physiological proc- 
ess, we are quite in doubt. It has long been 
a problem among theologians how sin got into 
the world, but this certainly must be regarded 
as a novel method of getting it out. 



46 Fugitives. 

" O everlasting Truth ! 
Truest of all that 's true." 

" In life or death, I take my stand 
Where I have ever stood." 

Are tautologies specially lyrical or poetical? 
If not, why have they been so numerously in- 
troduced, in defiance of the most elementary 
principles of rhetoric ? 

By what contorted adjustment of the vocal 
organs, can any congregation or choir sing the 
following stanza: — 

" Yes, o'er me, o'er me He watcheth, 
Ceaseless watcheth, night and day ; 
Yes, ev'n me, ev'n me, He snatcheth 
From the perils of the way." 

Or the following line : — 

" Ah ! Grace, into unlikeliest hearts." 

It is a noticeable fact, that many of the poor- 
est hymns in this collection are new and anony- 
mous. The authors evidently have shown more 
wisdom in suppressing their names, than skill 
in manufacturing their poetry. If, by some In- 
dex Expurgatorius, this book could be relieved 
of two hundred hymns, of these outre character- 
istics, it would be a grand deliverance. 

The editors felicitate the public that they have 
introduced several ancient hymns. The thought 
was a good one. " Hymns of the Ages " — 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 47 

commemorating some great historical events in 
the church of God, fragrant with the aroma of 
a simpler piety, sounding along the galleries of 
time, and inviting the choral responses of the 
world now half covered with Christians, — would, 
indeed, enrich any collection. Perhaps the best 
of the very few of this description, which we 
find in the Sabbath Hymn Book, is the Battle- 
song of Gustavus Adolphus, which was sung 
by him at the head of his army, on the morning 
of the day when he fell at Lutzen, in 1631. 
For the purpose of ascertaining the merits of 
the translation of this hymn, we must quote it 
at length ; and also the version of it which ap- 
pears in the "Lyra Germanica," recently pub- 
lished : — 

The Editors' 1 Translation. 

" Fear not, O little flock, the foe 
Who madly seeks your overthrow ; 

Dread not his rage and power; 
What though your courage sometimes faints ! 
This seeming triumph o'er God's saints, 
Lasts but a little hour. 

" Fear not ! be strong ! your cause belongs 
To Him who can avenge your wrongs ; 

Leave all to Him, your Lord ; 
Though hidden yet from mortal eyes, 
Salvation shall for you arise ; 

He girdeth on His sword. 



48 Fugitives. 



" As sure as God's own promise stands, 
Not earth, nor hell, with all their bands, 

Against us shall prevail ; 
The Lord shall mock him from His throne ; 
God is with us, we are His own ; 
Our victory cannot fail ! 

" Amen ! Lord Jesus, grant our prayer ; 
Great Captain ! now Thine arm make bare 

Thy church with strength defend ; 
So shall all saints and martyrs raise 
A joyful chorus to Thy praise, 
Through ages without end." 



Translation of the "Lyra Germanica" 

11 Fear not, O little flock, the foe 
Who madly seeks your overthrow ; 

Dread not his rage and power ; 
What though your courage sometimes faints ! 
His seeming triumph o'er God's saints 

Lasts but a little hour. 

" Be of good cheer ! your cause belongs 
To Him who can avenge your wrongs ; 

Leave it to Him, our Lord. 
Though hidden yet from all our eyes, 
He sees the Gideon who shall rise 
To save us and His word. 

" As true as God's own word is true, 
Not earth nor hell, with all their crew, 

Against us shall prevail ; 
A jest and by- word are they grown, 
God is with us, we are His own ; 

Our victory cannot fail. 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 49 

" Amen ! Lord Jesus, grant our prayer ! 
Great Captain ! now Thine arm make bare ! 

Fight for us once again ! 
So shall Thy saints and martyrs raise 
A mighty chorus to Thy praise, 

World without end, Amen! " 

Nearly every variation between these versions 
is in favor of the latter. 

" His seeming triumph," is much better than 
" This seeming triumph," both because it is more 
definite, and because it refers directly to the per- 
sonal antecedent, — " the foe." 

" Be of good cheer," is an expression much 
more characteristic of those early times, than 
that of the editors, and it also avoids a repeti- 
tion of the first words of the hymn. " Leave 
it to Him," is decidedly better than " Leave all 
to Him." 

" He sees the Gideon who shall rise 
To save us and His word," 

is also much more in harmony with the mental 
associations of the Reformers, whose minds were 
full of the names and incidents in the Scriptures, 
than is the generalizing couplet in the Sabbath 
Hymn Book. The lines, 

" As true as God's own word is true, 
Not earth and hell with all their crew." 

" A jest and by-word they have grown," 
7 



50 Fugitives. 

also harmonize much better with the diction of 
olden times, than the corresponding ones in the 
Hymn Book. 

On the morning before a battle, 

" Fight for us once again ! " 

is a much more natural prayer than the general 
one, 

" Thy church with strength defend." 

" A mighty chorus," is unquestionably superior to 
a "joyful" one, because we always expect that 
choruses will be "joyful after a victory," but not 
always powerful. 

It is altogether surprising to us, that gentle- 
men who have occupied, or now occupy, the 
chair of Griffin and Porter — the Cicero and 
Quintilian of our pulpits — have inherited so 
little of their exquisite critical taste, as to have 
admitted into the Sabbath Hymn Book a greater 
number of rhetorical blemishes, we must take 
the liberty to say though it is with pain, than 
can be found in any other since the days of 
Sternhold and Hopkins. 

But the editors of this book have a strong 
" proclivity " for emending the best lyric poets 
in our language. We have seen what they have 
done for Pope and Montgomery, let us now look 
at their success upon Addison and Heber, Cow- 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 51 

per and Watts. In Addison's sweetly flowing 
and inimitable idyl, 

" The Lord my pasture shall prepare," 

" friendly crook " is altered into " friendly rod" 
when every one knows that " crooks," and not 
" rods," are always used by shepherds in super- 
intending their flocks. We are sorry to have 
that delightful bucolic, — in which the poet so 
admirably avails himself of the habits of pasto- 
ral life in the East, to set forth the care of the 
Great Shepherd over his people, — marred by 
the substitution of an occidental for an oriental 
figure. 

In Bishop Heber's Missionary Hymn, the line 

" Till earth's remotest nation," 

is altered on this wise : — 

" Till each remotest nation." 

It is understood that the editors defend this, 
as the original reading of the hymn. But is it 
to be believed, that a scholar, so eminent as 
Heber was in every department of letters, could 
have allowed a line to go from his pen, in which 
the plainest principles of grammar are violated ? 

In Cowper's precious hymn, 

" There is a Fountain filled with blood," 

the last stanza, as it came from his exquisite 
taste, reads as follow: — 



5 2 Fugitives. 

11 Then in a nobler, sweeter song, 
I '11 sing Thy power to save, 
When this poor, lisping, stammering tongue 
Lies silent in the grave." 

In the Sabbath Hymn Book we find the fol- 
lowing transposition of the couplets, and change 
of reading : — 

" And when this feeble, stammering tongue 
Lies silent in the grave, 
Then, in a nobler, sweeter song, 
I '11 sing Thy power to save." 

The idea of the poet evidently was, that in 
our present state of imperfection and sin, we 
cannot express, in proper tones, the Redeemer's 
" power to save." Now the natural impediments 
to speech are " lisping " and " stammering," and 
not " feebleness." A man may speak distinctly, 
though he is "feeble," but never when he 
"lisps" or "stammers." With the truest phi- 
losophy as well as taste, the poet has selected 
these two impediments, and by them has repre- 
sented our inability, adequately to set forth the 
power and glory of the Saviour. The substitu- 
tion of " feeble " for " lisping," is also objection- 
able on logical grounds. " Feeble " is a generic, 
but " lisping " is a specific term. Specific terms 
are always the most forcible, both in eloquence 
and in song, and on that account the poet has 
greatly the advantage of his emendators. For 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 53 

these reasons, which we think are irrefragable, 
the change is to be reprobated and the original 
reading ought to be restored. 

As it regards the transposition of the couplets in 
this stanza, the taste of the compilers is equally 
at fault. It must have been made, we should 
judge, either because they thought the order of 
events, or the climax, or both, required it. In 
the order of events it is indeed certain, that 
Christians cannot begin the song of heaven till 
after their death ; but the conception of the 
poet, we think, had not reference so much to 
the order of time, as to the amazing contrast 
between the ability of the song of heaven and 
the songs of earth, to set forth the Redeemer's 
praise ; — a contrast which he skilfully heightens, 
by bringing the mind unexpectedly back, from 
the free-spoken, triumphant alleluias of the skies, 
to the utter silence of the tongue in the grave. 
And the real climax in this case, requires that 
arrangement of the couplets which Cowper him 
self preferred. In the judgment of many, the 
power of climax always depends upon the quan- 
tity of sound. According to that judgment, the 
greater the noise, the greater the impression. And 
it is freely admitted, that in many cases, noise is 
the element of the greatest potency ; and hence 
it is, that the thunder of the deepest-toned or- 



54 Fugitives, 

gans is thought to be indispensable to the high- 
est rhetorical effect of the songs of the sanctuary. 
According to the popular taste, the major is 
more powerful than the minor. But while ad- 
mitting that it is so in many cases, we are far 
from believing that it is always so, as a normal 
fact. The case under consideration has always 
appeared to us a marked and splendid example 
of the contrary. A finished performance of this 
stanza, in the order the poet has left it, com- 
mencing with the sonorous acclamation, 

" Then, in a nobler, sweeter song, 
I '11 sing Thy power to save ; " 

and running down into the pathetic and scarcely 
audible minor, — 

" When this poor, lisping, stammering tongue 
Lies silent in the grave ; " 

cannot fail to find its way to the place of tears, 
and send any congregation to God with thanks- 
givings for redeeming grace. 

In the fifty-first Psalm, Watts has this 
stanza : — 

«' Behold, I fall before Thy face, 
My only refuge is Thy grace ; 
No outward forms can make me clean, 
The leprosy lies deep within." 

The editors have changed it into the follow- 
ing : — 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 55 

« Behold, I fall before Thy face, 
My only refuge is Thy grace ; 
Great God ! create my heart anew, 
And form my spirit pure and true." 

The substitution of these lines breaks the con- 
tinuity of the thought, which is the inefficacy of 
" outward forms " to cleanse us from sin, — a 
thought which is continued under more specific 
terms in the next stanza : — 

" No bleeding bird, nor bleeding beast, 
Nor hyssop branch, nor sprinkling priest," etc. 

Now the Sabbath Hymn Book interrupts 
this train of thought by interposing two lines of 
entirely different import, and with characteristic 
taste, changes again specific for general expres- 
sions; — the "outward forms" and the "leprosy," 
for a common prayer for regeneration. Very 
few confessions come welling up from a pro- 
founder depth in the hearts of Christians, or are 
oftener on their lips, than this, — 

" No outward forms can make me clean, 
The leprosy lies deep within ; " 

and we are extremely unwilling to have this 
very formula of words, so precious to all good 
men, by disuse in our churches, gradually fade 
away from the memory of the world. 

This is one of several cases where Watts has 
been altered to the decided injury of correct 
taste and poetic beauty. 



56 Fugitives, 

But it gives us far more pleasure to commend 
where we can, than to find fault where we must. 
Some of the alterations in the Sabbath Hymn 
Book are obvious and important improvements, 
if alterations are admissible at all. 

" The Son of God in tears, 
Angels with wonder see," 

is changed into the following, where the accen- 
tuation is much improved : — 

" The Son of God in tears 
The wondering angels see." 

So, for the lines of Doddridge, — 

" Then, speechless, clasp Thee in my arms, 
The antidote of death ; " — 

we have, — 

" Then, speechless, clasp Thee in my arms, 
The conqueror of death." 

An "antidote" counteracts ox prevents an evil; 
a " conqueror " overcomes it. The Saviour does 
not prevent death, but He can give us the victory 
over it. 

This couplet of Fawcett is decidedly bene- 
fited, — 

" In pain you travail all your days, 
To reap immortal woe." 



It is changed for 



In pain you travel all your days, 
To reap eternal woe." 



The Sabbath Hymn Book. 57 

The figure, running through this hymn, of 
travelling on a road, shows that the change was 
desirable. 

On a resume of the character of the Sabbath 
Hymn Book, in our judgment, there is consider- 
able in it to commend, but much more to dis- 
approve. Our wonder is, that, with all the 
facilities which the respected editors possessed, 
and with their acknowledged ability in other 
departments of criticism, they have not pro- 
duced a much better book. The great merit 
of the volume consists in the Introduction, which 
is very ably and skilfully drawn; in the Indexes, 
which are far more elaborate and complete than 
in any other hymn book before the public ; in 
the philosophical arrangement of the subjects, 
which leaves nothing to be desired ; and in the 
evangelical character of its contents, which, after 
a very thorough examination, we think must be 
quite satisfactory to all "schools" of theology in 
New England. 

But valuable as are all these characteristics of 
the book, none of them, except the last, are vital 
to its usefulness " for the service of song in the 
house of the Lord." They are only accessories 
to the main object of a hymn book. We do 
not sing introductions, nor indexes, nor philo- 
sophical order. We sing " psalms, and hymns, 



58 Fugitives. 

and spiritual songs." The editors of this volume 
are evidently much more at home in making 
these important adjuncts, than in compiling the 
body proper of the book. Their professional 
studies are of the severer kind. Reasoning from 
their mental habits, they have succeeded just 
where we should expect them to succeed, and have 
failed just where we might have expected they 
would fail. Poetry, clearly, is not their forte. 
We regard Worcester's Watts and Select 
Hymns, and the Congregational Hymn Book, 
on the score of good taste and sound theology, 
as the best books of the kind now before the 
public ; but if the churches are not fully satis- 
fied with them, we hope that some man, com- 
petent to the task, or some men, by a union of 
counsels, taking advantage of the mistakes which 
are so numerous and glaring in the selections 
and alterations in the Sabbath Hymn Book, will 
be " bold " enough to make a much better one, 
and " offer it to the public " as early as possible 
" during the present century. 



»i 



1 In March, 1864, five years after this review originally appeared, 
Rev. Nehemiah Adams, D. D., of Boston, not having the fear of 
one of the recommenders of the Sabbath Hymn Book before his 
eyes, published his " Church Pastorals." Dr. Adams has restored 
the original readings of the hymns which had been mutilated in the 
Sabbath Hymn Book and Church Psalmody, and, for good taste 
in the selections, it is a decided improvement upon those volumes. 



RETURN TO THE SANCTUARY. 

The following hymn was sung at the re-opening of the Trinitarian 
Congregational Church, in Waltham, December 5th, 1858. 

With joy did Israel hope, 

While in oppression still, 
To see their Temple rise from dust, 

On Zion's chosen hill. 

To see the courts of God, 

How oft did David long, 
To hear the thundering organ's peal, 

And join the choral song. 

Lift up your hearts, ye saints, 

And send your paeans high, 
The gates of Zion open wide 

For your return to-day. 

The glad Evangel sounds : 

Let thronging thousands come, 

And find these Renovated Courts, 
Their birthplace and their home. 

And when these Sabbaths close, 

May heavenly visions rise, 
And this assembled host adore, 

In Temples of the skies. 



THE 



ALLEGED PROGRESS IN THEOLOGY. 



IT has come to be a matter of frequent re- 
mark, that we live in an age of great progress 
in theology, and that similar progress is hereafter 
to be expected. It is time to examine this im- 
pression, that we may ascertain what elements 
in it are true, and what are false, so that we may 
know whether we are tending towards views of 
Scriptural truth which are really more intelligent 
and sound, or abandoning those which are cor- 
rect for those which are doubtful and erroneous. 
If we mistake not, this opinion is held by many 
of the younger clergy of the present day, but is 
not concurred in, to much extent, by the mid- 
dle-aged and older members of the clerical pro- 
fession, or by the churches. Quite recently we 
propounded the question to a young pastor of 
more than average intelligence, and his prompt 
reply was, that he believed that " great progress 
has been made in theology even within the last 
ten years" We deem it safe then to assume, 



The alleged Progress in Theology. 61 

that this impression is quite current among us; 
and as Bacon long ago remarked, that the prin- 
ciples of the young men of a nation decide its 
destiny, so this opinion of our young theolo- 
gians may lead to results which will seriously 
affect the best interests of the churches. While 
we heartily abjure that spirit of heresy-hunting 
which seeks to promote groundless divisions, or 
which would subserve mere partisan interests, 
we hold it to be the duty of every friend of 
Zion to " contend earnestly," and yet in the 
spirit of the Gospel, "for the faith once deliv- 
ered to the saints," — a "faith" which was as per- 
fect when it was "delivered" as it is now, or 
ever will be, under the highest culture which 
humanity will attain. Alexander Hamilton pro- 
foundly said, that "jealousy is often the surest 
proof of strong attachment." 

There are at least four distinct grounds on 
which the opinion now under consideration is 
based, and to which it may be well briefly to 
advert, before we enter upon the examination of 
the subject itself. 

1. The great frequency with which the re- 
mark of John Robinson is quoted from his val- 
edictory address to the Pilgrims at Delft Haven, 
that he was confident " God had more light in 
his Word which he would cause to break forth," 



62 Fugitives. 

indicates that this has had no little influence in 
diffusing, if not creating, the impression to which 
we refer. This remark of Robinson, it should 
be remembered, however, had, probably, exclu- 
sive reference to points of church order and 
liberty of conscience — questions which at that 
time were warmly discussed, and not to the cen- 
tral truths of dogmatic theology. It was not 
difference of opinion upon those truths, which 
separated the Puritans from the Established 
Church of England, or sent them to Leyden, or 
brought them to Plymouth. Robinson, Good- 
win, Owen, and their compeers among the In- 
dependents, heartily held the doctrines of the 
Westminster Confession, and even those of the 
Thirty-Nine Articles. Robinson's celebrated re- 
mark has, therefore, no relevancy to the subject 
before us. 

2. The progress which has been made, in past 
ages, in the construction of creeds, has also had 
its influence. Though Augustine held many of 
the doctrines which we hold, they have, since 
his day, been digested into more systematic and 
scientific forms. The Nicene Creed, as com- 
pared with the Apostles' Creed, shows great 
advance in a formal statement of Christian doc- 
trine. The Augsburg Confession, drawn up by 
Luther and Melancthon, in 1530, was another 



The alleged Progress in Theology, 63 

step of progress particularly in relation to the 
real substitution, and vicarious sacrifice of Christ, 
and the necessity, freeness, and efficacy of divine 
grace. The Synod of Dort, in 1619, defined, 
with still greater accuracy, the important differ- 
ence between the doctrines of Calvinism and 
Arminianism ; and finally, the Westminster As- 
sembly, in 1643, formed a Confession of Faith, 
which, for comprehensiveness, symmetry, and 
soundness, had never been equalled, and which 
has scarcely been improved, in the slightest par- 
ticular, to the present time. The Cambridge 
Platform in 1648, the Savoy Confession, in 
1658, the Boston Confession in 1680, and the 
Saybrook Platform in 1708, are, with but a few 
quite unimportant exceptions, mere reaffirma- 
tions, and in almost ipsissimis verbis, of the doc 
trines of the Westminster Confession. Edwards 
and Bellamy, Hopkins and Dwight, Neander 
and Olshausen, have made scarcely any percep- 
tible progress beyond the wonderful general 
accuracy of the Westminster Confession; and 
to-day, there is no creed in Old or New Eng- 
land, which is so well known, or regarded as of 
so high authority, or is so generally appealed to 
as the standard of orthodoxy, as this Confession, 
framed 217 years ago. Even on those points, 
with which divines of the " progressive " school 



64 Fugitives. 

have found the most fault, such as the divine 
predestination of " whatsoever comes to pass," 
the moral connection of the human race with 
our first parents, and the imputation of Christ's 
righteousness to believers, after all their most 
elaborate efforts to substitute phraseology more 
in harmony, as they conceived, with the teach- 
ings of the Bible, they have produced nothing 
which has met with any permanent public favor. 
Learning, wit, ridicule, acumen, have expended 
their united powers upon the averments of the 
Assembly on those points, and have in vain at- 
tempted to frame others, to be accepted by the 
churches. Probably no statement in the Assem- 
bly's Confession or Catechism has encountered 
such fierce opposition from the modern school, 
as that relating to the connection between Adam 
and his posterity. But notwithstanding that op- 
position, including the sneer, so often repeated, 
that " the covenants were all made in Holland," 
God did enter into some sort of covenant, plan, 
or arrangement with Adam, call it by what term 
you please, by which he became the head or 
representative of his posterity; a covenant, plan, 
or arrangement, to which he was a party, and 
by which the moral character and destiny of his 
descendants were wrapped up, so to say, in his 
own conduct; and it was only in this corporate 



The alleged Progress in Theology* 65 

and representative sense, that the Assembly af- 
firmed that we "sinned in him, and fell with 
him, in his first transgression." Their affirm- 
ation was, not that we were personally present, 
but corporately, or seminally, and representa- 
tively present in "his first transgression." And 
was not this true % And what improvement 
upon this very phraseology, taken in the sense 
in which the Assembly used it, have its oppo- 
nents, with all the subtlety and skill of the 
acutest dialectics, been able to construct ? 

We do not mean by these statements, that 
the Westminster Confession ought to be ac- 
cepted as a finality in such a sense, as to ex- 
clude attempts to set its great truths in new 
lights and relations, always, of course, retaining 
and presenting those truths themselves in their 
integrity and power. The soundest religious 
philosophy of the present day has not been able 
to make any perceptible progress even in that 
direction. Though such progress is theoreti- 
cally possible, and perhaps probable, no practical 
results of it have yet appeared, either in the con- 
struction of symbols of faith, or in oral procla- 
mations of the truth. 

Never was a synod of divines in a better po- 
sition for forming a sound Confession of Faith 
than that of Westminster. It was composed of 
9 



66 Fugitives. 

men of the most unquestionable talents and the 
most profound erudition. They were preemi- 
nently skilled in the original languages of the 
Bible. They enjoyed, besides, the assistance of 
the most eminent scholars in the kingdom, both 
lay and clerical, who were not of their own 
body. They were not themselves divided into 
" schools," each having its separate party inter- 
ests to serve. And more than all, they were 
men of prayer — eminent for " walking with 
God," even in a generation which, perhaps, has 
had no equal for consecration to Christ. Their 
Confession of Faith and their Catechism were 
therefore formed under a conjuncture of condi- 
tions far more favorable than any which had 
preceded it o*r may come after it; and have com- 
manded to this day a wider measure of appro- 
bation from the friends of Christianity than any 
others ever framed. 

Since the promulgation of the Saybrook Plat- 
form in 1708, propositions have at various times 
been made for conventions to be called to form 
a better confession than the Westminster or its 
reaffirmations ; but they have met with no en- 
couragement from the churches. The provi- 
dence of God has always interposed against such 
attempts, and we see no indications that they 
are likely to be more successful in the future. 



The alleged Progress in Theology. 67 

He has frustrated every attempt to produce a 
better English version of the Bible than the one 
now generally in use. So far as we can divine 
his will from his providences, it would seem that 
King James's translation is to be the Bible for 
the countless millions which will speak the 
English language in future ages, and that the 
Westminster Confession of Faith will continue 
in the hands of those millions as the best epit- 
ome of the doctrinal contents of that Holy 
Book. We see, therefore, from that quarter, no 
evidence that the present generation are making 
any essential advances in theological accuracy. 

3. The astonishing progress which has been 
made, within the last fifty years, in many of 
the natural sciences and the arts, has doubtless 
led some to believe that a corresponding pro- 
gress must have been made in theology. The 
brilliant discoveries in geology, astronomy, chem- 
istry, etc., which throw such a halo of glory 
over the present age; the application of steam 
to the purpose of locomotion, so that we can 
now travel by sea at the rate of twenty miles, 
and by land at the rate of sixty miles per hour ; 
and the transmission of intelligence, by an elec- 
trical battery, from England to America, and 
back again to England, and all in less time than 
it requires to state the fact, have apparently con- 



68 Fugitives. 

vinced the "Young America" of our clergy, 
that a parallel "progress" has been made and 
will yet be made in theological science and doc- 
trinal correctness. But considering the wide 
difference there is in the nature of the two sub- 
jects which are thus brought into comparison, 
and of our means of information upon them, 
there is an unfortunate chasm between the prem- 
ises and the conclusion. 

4. Another cause of our supposed advance in 
theology may, perhaps, be found in a secret dis- 
relish of the doctrines of the Bible themselves, 
and a desire to get rid of them altogether. " Lo 
this only have I found," said the Preacher, " that 
God hath made man upright, but they have 
sought out many inventions." We love and 
revere the Christian ministry, and would relig- 
iously shield it from all undeserved reproach. 
But " faithful are the wounds of a friend," and 
that faithfulness requires us to admit, under the 
instructions which history forces upon our re- 
membrance, that some of the subtlest develop- 
ments of dissatisfaction with the truth have been 
found under the robes of the sacerdotal office, 
and that that incipient hesitation to " declare all 
the counsel of God," which next precedes the 
avowal of positive error, is the fault of conse- 
crated lips. We would by no possibility be un- 



The alleged Progress in Theology. 69 

charitable, on the one hand, nor, on the other, 
ought we to ignore those monitory lessons of 
the past in New England, which teach us that 
there may be among us theologians, claiming to 
be evangelical, who are busy with their " inven- 
tions " to make the doctrines of grace more pal- 
atable to themselves and to others. And what 
watchword is more flattering to the pride of the 
heart, or less likely to awaken the suspicions of 
good men, than the cry of " progress in the- 
ology," and especially so in a day when " prog- 
ress " is confessedly made in almost every other 
important interest of society ? When we con- 
sider the hostility of the natural heart to the 
humbling doctrines of Christianity — a hostility 
which can never be made placable by any scho- 
lastic attainment or refinement of manners — is 
it at all surprising that some men, of whom we 
ought to expect better things, may be unwit- 
tingly attempting to conceal or remove that 
hostility by the vain imagination that they are 
wiser on some theological points than Calvin, 
or Edwards, or Howe. If the edge of those 
doctrines can be turned or their sharpness 
blunted, by some novel, philosophical statement 
of them, will not much be gained both to their 
peace of conscience and their dialectic skill ? 
That such motives as these may unconsciously 



jo Fugitives. 

convince some persons that they are far in ad- 
vance of men superior to themselves in the- 
ological attainments, it is only accepting the 
instructions of history to conjecture. 

Having indicated some of the probable causes 
of the opinion we are considering, let us in- 
quire, 

First, in what respects it is true, that we are 
making real progress in theological science. It 
is true of the science of exegesis. It was a sound 
maxim of Melancthon, " Scriptura non potest in- 
telligi theologice, nisi antea sit intellecta gram* 
matice" — the Scripture cannot be understood 
theologically until it has been understood gram- 
matically. In this department, the German 
scholars have gone far in advance of the Eng- 
lish and even of the American, and for their 
profound and exhaustive researches we owe 
them a debt of gratitude which it will be diffi- 
cult to pay. The lexical and grammatical pecu- 
liarities of the Bible — the one relating to the 
origin, form, and usage of words, and the other 
to their flexion and government — have been 
mastered; the true canons of interpretation have 
been settled, and a determined adherence to 
them, let them conduct us to whatsoever results 
they may, is now conceded to be the religious 
duty of every expounder of the Scriptures. 



The alleged Progress in Theology. 7) 

The nice shades of difference in the meaning 
of biblical synonyms, and the true interpretation 
of difficult texts and of Hebrew and Greek idi- 
oms, were never so thoroughly understood. The 
science of hermeneutics may be said to have 
arrived very nearly to a state of perfectness, and 
the consequence is, that honest and intelligent 
interpreters are daily approximating towards 
unity of faith. 

The unsound principles of interpretation 
which for many centuries prevailed, and which 
substituted sound for sense, appearance for ar- 
gument, fanciful meanings for etymological, led 
to results the most deplorable; and we regret to 
say, that that style of interpretation has not yet 
entirely disappeared from the more illiterate 
class of the evangelical ministry. Grave divines 
practically adopted the absurdity of Home 
Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley, when he says: 
"Truth is nothing but what every man troweth; 
and two persons may contradict each other, and 
yet both speak truth, for the truth of one person 
may be opposite to the truth of another." This 
solemn trifling, which would make the Bible fa- 
vor any views however contradictory, is severely 
and justly rebuked by Luther. " We must 
not make God's Word mean what we wish ; we 
must not bend */, but allow it to bend us" ■ This 



72 Fugitives. 

mode of interpreting the Scriptures, which so 
seriously marred the investigations of the patris- 
tic and mediaeval scholars, is now all but uni- 
versally discarded, and little remains to be ac- 
complished in that direction, except to make all 
interpreters faithfully embrace and advocate that 
system of truth, to which we are inevitably con- 
ducted by a rigid adherence to the well-settled 
principles of philology. 

It is a fact of the deepest interest to the 
cause of truth, that all this increase of light, 
within the last half century, upon the science 
of biblical interpretation, has not unfavorably 
affected a single doctrine of the orthodox faith, 
but, on the contrary, it has contributed to estab- 
lish that system on a basis which, will forever 
remain impregnable. Fairbairn, in his Hermeneu- 
tical Manual, says : " By the establishment of a 
more accurate criticism, by sounder principles 
of interpretation, and by an intimate acquaint- 
ance with the original languages, it has been 
found that Scripture will not surrender up any 
of its peculiar doctrines. Ml Winer affirms the 
same truth: "The controversies among inter- 
preters have usually led back to the admission, 
that the old Protestant views of the meaning of 
the sacred texts, are the correct ones." 2 Prog- 

1 P. 88. 2 Literatur-Zeitung. No. 44. 



The alleged Progress in Theology. 73 

ress, then, in hermeneutical science, has only 
confirmed the theological system of the great 
divines of the seventeeth and eighteenth cen- 
turies. 

Very decided advance has also been made in 
the history of religious opinions. This branch 
of theological science has of late been prose- 
cuted in the most thorough manner, and its true 
place and real value in the interpretation of the 
Scriptures, are now very generally appreciated. 
In the Romish church, it has for ages been 
abused by making tradition of superior author- 
ity to the Bible. The famous maxim of Vin- 
centius Lirinensis, Quod ubique, quod semper, quod 
ab omnibus creditum est, was a preposterous en- 
gine of oppression, employed to compel conform- 
ity to the doctrines and usages of that church. 
That celebrated adage of Roman Catholic theo- 
logians, which once spread alarm among the na- 
tions, is, even now, feebly but impotently echoed 
by their High Church followers ; but another 
generation will scarcely pass away, before its 
dying tones will be lost upon the ear of man. 
Discrimination is now familiarly made between 
that ecclesiastical authority which steps in be- 
tween God and the conscience, and claims to 
determine the faith of men by the decrees of 
councils and the edicts of popes, under the 



74 Fugitives. 

pains and penalties of perdition ; and that en- 
lightened and sober regard to the belief of good 
men in all the ages, which uses it to accredit 
and confirm our own. 

" Analogy of Faith," or the " Regula Fidei " 
of the Latin doctors, as defined by Ernesti and 
others, leads to the inquiry, What has been the 
creed of the most serious and intelligent men 
since Christ ascended to heaven ? If the Church 
of Rome has fallen into the one extreme of 
regarding the faith of that church as the only 
and infallible test of truth, the Puritans, in their 
hatred of prelatic authority, fell into the other, 
by throwing the argument away altogether. A 
very important advance has therefore been made 
in theological science, by acquiring a more 
thorough knowledge of the history of religious 
opinions, and by a juster application of that 
knowledge in determining our own faith. The 
wise theologian, while he will never surrender 
the right of private judgment, will listen rever- 
ently to the voices of all time, to the accordant 
faith of the great and the good of all the ages ; 
and when he sees the Church passing through 
her cycles of controversy, and persecution, and 
progressive enlightenment, with a gradual and 
steady approach towards unity of faith, and her 
doctrinal views coalescing and culminating in 



The alleged Progress in Theology. 75 

the Reformed Confessions, and best set forth in 
the Westminster Confession of Faith — he feels 
that there is but little risk in adopting a system, 
which has been eliminated from the Scriptures 
by such a process, — by sixteen centuries of labo- 
rious study, unsparing self-correction and earnest 
prayer. A system, so educed from the Bible, 
and so enucleated of error, must be the true one, 
or all human methods of arriving at Scriptural 
doctrine are at fault. The clenching of this 
argument is the fact, that the present profound 
knowledge of the history of religious opinions 
— a department of study comparatively un- 
known to the Westminster divines, does not 
impair the conclusions to which they arrived on 
exegetical grounds, but strongly corroborates 
them. If there is, then, any system of religious 
faith, which is certified to be the true one by the 
general current of opinion for eighteen centuries, 
that system is the Evangelical, in the West- 
minster sense. In this matter, "the voice of 
the people is the voice of God." The true his* 
tory of Christianity, is the history of true Chris- 
tianity. 

Great progress has also been made in explor- 
ing the localities mentioned in the Bible, and in 
the knowledge of Oriental manners and cus* 
toms. The labors of Niebuhr, Jahn, Robinson, 



76 Fugitives. 

Smith, Barclay, Thompson, and others, in this 
department, leave little to be desired; and the 
results of their very accurate researches have 
added " confirmation strong " to the current be- 
lief, that the Biblical record is worthy of entire 
credence. 

"Theological philosophy, too, has been improved. 
The influence which philosophy exerts upon 
theological speculation is proverbial. The dog- 
matic views of the early fathers were essentially 
affected by the philosophy of Plato ; those of 
the mediaeval schoolmen, by the dialectics of 
Aristotle ; and those of our own times, by the 
systems of Des Cartes, Bacon, Locke, Leibnitz, 
Berkeley, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Sir William 
Hamilton. It is hardly possible for the scien- 
tific theologian wholly to emancipate himself 
from the philosophy and public opinion of the 
age in which he lives ; and if he can, he must 
necessarily have some philosophy of his own, 
which is always less valuable, as it is more sub- 
jective, more partial, more out of the line of 
history, and less adapted to the wants of the 
age. " The history of philosophy and of Chris- 
tian doctrine," says Dr. SchafF, " move forward 
side by side, alternately repelling and attracting 
each other, till at last the natural reason of man 
will come into perfect harmony with divine rev- 



The alleged Progress in Theology. 77 

elation, and the wisdom of the world become 
identical with the wisdom of God." 

The progress which has of late been made in 
the philosophy of theology has, we think, de- 
monstrated the shallowness of all those theories 
of sin which make it consist wholly in exer- 
cises, to the rejection of a sinful nature; and 
which hold that, under a government of law, 
it can be pardoned and disposed of without a 
real atonement. Superficial views of the more 
than Miltonic depth of sin in the human heart 
logically lead to superficial views of regenera- 
tion, and resolve it into culture, or into the self- 
determination of the will, or into a mere change 
of the purpose, which the sinner can at any mo- 
ment enact, as easily as he can turn over his 
hand, or walk into another room. The philo- 
sophy which underlies the theory of Dr. Em- 
mons on the nature of sin, though not so in- 
tended by him, is really the fons et origo of those 
so-called "improvements in theology," which for 
the last thirty years have divided the churches 
and the ministry, and which are still a "lamen- 
tation" among us. That great and good man 
repudiated the "New Haven theology," though, 
in so doing, he repudiated what was the natural 
and logical result of his own theories when sep- 
arated from his view of the divine efficiency. 
He seems almost to have regarded it as the great 



78 Fugitives. 

mission of his life to establish the thesis, that 
we did not " sin in " or " fall with " Adam, and 
that all sin consists in exercises. But 

" What a pity, in rearing so beauteous a system, 
One trifling particular, truths should have missed him." 

His theory, however, as advocated by Dr. Tay- 
lor and others, took sin out of those abysmal 
depths of the heart where it ever lives and rages, 
made it phenomenal, and taught us that it lies 
scarcely beneath the very epidermis of the char- 
acter. To construct a regeneration which would 
match such superficial views of sin, was then an 
easy task. 

It may not be irrelevant to the present discus- 
sion to remark, in passing, that other theories of 
Dr. Emmons, as, that infants dying, are annihi- 
lated, 1 that we must be willing to be damned 
in order to be saved, 2 and that the first emotions 
of young converts invariably rise in the order of 
love, repentance, faith 3 — are simply the specu- 
lations of his philosophy. According to his 
own showing, these dogmas are not the direct 
teachings of the Bible, but only, as he calls 
them, his " inferences." Twenty years have not 
elapsed since he went to the rewards of his 
laborious life, but, in the interim, such has been 
the progress in philosophical speculation, that 

l See Works, vol. iv. p. 510. 2 Memoir, vol. i. p. 83. 
3 Works, vol. v. p. 162. 



"The alleged Progress in Iheology. 79 

probably ten divines cannot now be found 
among us who believe either of these theories. 

Happily for the cause of truth, such absurd 
speculations are passing away, and sounder 
views of the nature of sin, of the atonement, 
and of regeneration, under the influence of a 
sounder philosophy, have already begun to ob- 
tain among divines, who thought differently 
thirty years ago. A theology which is sufficient 
to save an apostate world must rest on the truest 
philosophical basis ; and the late discussions of 
these subjects have, we think, pretty thoroughly 
convinced the most candid men among us, that 
we must go back for the most correct views of 
theology to the fundamental truths of that sys- 
tem which culminated in the rise of Puritanism, 
the settlement of this country, modern revivals 
of religion, and missionary operations in pagan 
lands. 

Having glanced at the points in which real 
progress has of late been made in theological 
science, let us now look at that in which no 
advance has been or can be made, and which is, 
indeed, the vital point in the subject before us. 
We refer to the great doctrines of Christianity 
themselves. 

In the nature of the case, the substantive and 
central truths of the Bible must always remain 



80 Fugitives. 

the same. They can no more change, or be 
improved, than their Author and Revealer. 

Doctrinal truth, as it came from the mind of 
the Holy Ghost, is a fixed quantity. Its integ- 
rity is impaired, either by addition or subtrac- 
tion. The doctrines of the Bible are therefore, 
in themselves, complete, finished, perfect. But 
while this is perhaps generally admitted, it is 
said, that our apprehension and statement of 
them may be indefinitely improved. Here, 
then, lies the gist of our inquiry, and here is 
the point where the most important " progress " 
is claimed to be made. It has recently been 
declared, that " in our apprehension of divine 
truth, great progress may be made, and is to be 
devoutly hoped for. If progress has been made 
in centuries past, why may it not be so in the 
centuries yet future ? Who will say where this 
progress is to cease ? " 

Now, it might be a sufficient reply to say, 
that any statement of theological doctrines 
which abandons or modifies the usual orthodox 
nomenclature, would be a virtual abandonment 
or modification of the doctrines themselves. 
Probably in no science, excepting mathematics, 
is it as true that " words are things," as in that 
of theology. The current terms which set forth 
the dogmatic truths of revelation, have been 



The alleged Progress in 'Theology. 81 

used for ages. Their etymological and histor- 
ical sense is so true to the thoughts to be ex- 
pressed, they have so long been employed by 
the most acute and comprehensive minds to 
mean precisely what they now do in common 
discourse, and they are so clearly and firmly 
fixed in the public thought, that an attempt to 
substitute others in their room, would at once, 
and justly, excite the suspicion of unsoundness 
in the faith. Hence it is, that some popular 
preachers of the " progressive " school, who are 
now experimenting in this direction, have al- 
ready lost much of the confidence of the Chris- 
tian public. Indeed, it is hardly conceivable, 
that society can possibly reach such a height of 
refinement, or the ministry become so learned 
and astute, that those terms can ever be safely 
dispensed with, or even essentially modified. 

But the opinion we are considering can be 
successfully met from another point of depar- 
ture. It may, indeed, be presumptuous to af- 
firm, that it is within the competence of unin- 
spired men to construct a creed which shall be 
absolutely perfect, nor is such an affirmation 
necessary to the validity of our argument. Ab- 
solute perfectness is not to be expected. It is 
only that approach to it, which is possible to the 
most enlightened and sanctified humanity. The 



82 Fugitives. 

assertion then, that, in the present highly ad- 
vanced state of biblical science, and with our 
present most complete apparatus for biblical 
criticism, and in the possession of a formulary 
of faith which has stood the test of two hundred 
years, "great progress in theology may yet be 
made, and continue to be made in the centuries 
yet future," would seem to be against all proba- 
bility, as well as at war with the position, that 
theological truth is an invariable quantity. It 
proceeds, too, on the assumption, that our at- 
tainments in theology are as tentative and ex- 
perimental as in chemistry or astronomy ; that 
God has not revealed to us his will in his word 
more clearly than he has the number of the stars 
in the heavens to the unassisted eye of man, or 
a knowledge of the properties of elementary 
substances and their mutual combinations to 
him who has never stepped into the laboratory 
of a chemist. The assumption is preposterous. 
But it would not be preposterous, if God had 
given us written revelations upon the sciences 
of chemistry and astronomy. If he had so done, 
then our means of information upon those sci- 
ences would be of the same character, as are 
our present means of information upon the sci- 
ence of theology. In that event, our knowl- 
edge of those sciences would be no more exper- 



The alleged Progress in Theology. 83 

imental and " progressive," than our knowledge 
of theology now is. In our present relations 
to these two subjects, we cannot therefore reason 
from the one to the other, either with logic or 
with safety. 

The Bible is a special revelation to us upon 
the subject of theology. It was given to be 
understood, and it can be understood by a pro- 
per application to it of the usual canons for 
interpreting language. Those canons can be 
applied to it now, as properly and as success- 
fully as they can be a thousand years hence. 
The truths and facts of the Bible lie now, as 
much as they will then, within the range of the 
human understanding enlightened by education 
and grace; whereas countless orbs, unannounced 
by special apocalypse, roll in the heavens and 
will always give employment to the telescope; 
and numberless laws in this sublunary world, 
unexplained from above, will forever reward the 
investigations of the philosopher. The very 
revelation we have upon the high themes of 
theology necessarily sets metes and bounds to 
human inquiry, and prescribes "limits to religi- 
ous thought," — a status which widely differs 
from that of any of the natural sciences. 

This theory of indefinite progression in the- 
ology is not unlike that of the author of the 



84 Fugitives. 

Vestiges of Creation, as to natural history ; which 
is, that the first organized being was an animated 
animalcule, which gradually became an animal 
of the lowest form, and then slowly expanded 
into a mollusc, which, afterwards, in the lapse 
of ages, grew into a fish, and this, after many 
attempts, got on to dry land, converted its fins 
into legs and became a reptile, and the reptile 
shot out wings and became a bird, and the bird 
dropped its wings downward, made legs of them 
and became a beast, and the beast at length rose 
up erect and became a man. If this theory be 
correct, alas ! for the past generations of men, 
and alas ! perhaps, for us, for even we, for aught 
we can tell, may yet be in the palaeozoic stage 
of theological development, and may have too 
little knowledge of the Bible to save us ! 

But, all badinage apart, we ask, then, if, with 
all the light which has been thrown upon the 
science of biblical interpretation for the last 
fifty years, theologians have not advanced at all 
in creed-making, and are now obliged to go 
back more than two centuries for the soundest 
symbol of the Christian faith which has yet 
been framed, what becomes of these boastful 
professions of "great progress in theology"? 
Who has made such " progress," and where are 
the symbols of their faith ? On a subject so 



The alleged Progress in Theology. 85 

grave as this, they ought, certainly, to have 
something to show in proof of such pretensions. 
What creed have they formed which is more in 
harmony with "the analogy of faith," and which 
is so generally accepted by the churches as to 
command a greater measure of respect, than 
that which for two hundred years has been ap- 
pealed to as the standard of orthodoxy ? In the 
absence of any such proof, we must be permitted 
to regard such pretensions as utterly groundless, 
and to inquire whether they are not indications 
of an intended departure, and, perhaps, of a 
real actual departure from the generally ac- 
cepted faith of the churches. Error has always 
entered the church with honeyed phrase and vel- 
vet step, but has been intolerant of every attempt 
to expose her approaches. 

But it is alleged, that if no advance has been 
made for a long period in the construction of 
creeds, decided progress is visible in the preach- 
ing of the truth in the pulpit. It is held that the 
clergy of the present day have a more perfect 
apprehension of the great doctrines of the Bible, 
and preach them with greater effect than their 
predecessors. But what are the facts in the 
case? That the literary and aesthetic qualities of 
the pulpit are superior to those of any former 
period, is admitted ; but is it not the public 



86 Fugitives. 

conviction, that what has been gained on the 
score of elegance and taste, is more than bal- 
anced by the loss of depth and of truth *? Is it 
not the general belief, that the distinctive doc- 
trines of Christianity do not lie in the minds of 
the clergy so clearly and sharply defined, and 
that their discussion of them in the pulpit is by 
no means so frequent, clear, and uncompromis- 
ing as in past times ? Is it not a matter o"f re- 
mark and solicitude in the churches, that the 
ministry of the present day do not preach so 
doctrinally, or so closely, as did the fathers ? Is 
it not true, that the great doctrines of the sover- 
eignty of God, of the native depravity of man, 
of atonement for sin by the sacrifice of Christ, 
of personal election, of unconditional submis- 
sion, of regeneration by the special influences 
of the Holy Spirit, of justification by faith 
alone, and of the literal eternity of future pun- 
ishments, are not formally discussed in many 
of our pulpits once in a year, or even once in 
a lifetime *? Is it not the fact, that revivals of 
religion are less pure, that conviction of sin is 
less profound, and the exercises of professed con- 
verts are less satisfactory ? And is it not true, 
to a considerable extent, that in the great Revi- 
val, two years since, the ministry was less hon- 
ored as the instrumental power, and lay agency 



"The alleged Progress in Theology. 87 

used as never before in the work of converting 
men? 

In the light of facts such as these, so unusual, 
so significant, and so lamentable, what are we 
to think of the claim, that the utterances of the 
pulpit are sounder, more searching and effective, 
than in the days of the fathers ? The fault of 
that part of the evangelical pulpit to which we 
refer is not that it rejects the cardinal doctrines 
of the Bible, but that it does not present them in 
that formal, frequent, and earnest manner, which 
the exigencies of Zion demand. Their uncom- 
fortable angularities are practically rounded off, 
and their penetrating edge is practically blunted. 
Their moral force is evaporated by the very 
learned, and philosophical, and tasteful style in 
which they are discussed. They are not wholly 
ignored, neither are they thoroughly preached. 
So far as they are presented at all, it is rather by 
implication than by open confession, by an as- 
sumption of their truth, than by a direct demon- 
stration of it. The churches vitally need more 
of that unpretending but alarming exhibition of 
the fearful truths of the Bible, which, under the 
preaching of Edwards, started the congregation 
at Enfield to their feet, and made them cling to 
the balusters of the pews to save them from 
sinking into hell : more of that preaching of 



88 Fugitives. 

"Christ and his Cross," which rendered the min- 
istry of the eloquent Griffin "one scene of divine 
wonders : " more of that ardent zeal for the im- 
mediate conversion of sinners which glowed in 
the heart of Payson, and which daily said, "Give 
me Portland, or I die : " more of the apostolic 
gravity and pastoral fidelity of Hyde, who was 
" a good minister of Jesus Christ " everywhere, 
in his family, in the street, in his journeys, as 
well as in the pulpit : and more of the discrim- 
inating, searching ability of Nettleton, to lay 
open the sinner's heart to his own astonished 
view, and pursue him with persistent earnestness 
through all his windings and excuses, till he sub- 
mits at the foot of the Cross. 

But while a part of the clergy of our country, 
and especially of New England, give evidence 
that they have made no " progress in theology " 
in the right direction, there is another part by 
whom the doctrines of grace are enforced with 
all fidelity. Indications, too, are not wanting 
of return to sounder views, on the part of some 
divines, who, thirty years ago, were nearly "lost" 
in the "wandering mazes" of a false philosophy 
and a speculating theology. The New Haven 
divines of i860, with two or three exceptions, 
are not the New Haven divines of 1830. The 
leaven of those speculations is yet indeed 



The alleged Progress in Theology. 89 

widely spread in the ministry and the churches, 
and, in modified forms, it pervades some of the 
chairs of our theological institutions ; but the 
sound conservatism of the New England heart, 
and the New England head, and the old New 
England piety, will, we trust, ere long, by the 
grace of God, bring back the theology of New 
England to the platform of Edwards and the 
Catechism. Jehovah reigns. The true faith 
will yet triumph. " The good time coming " 
will certainly arrive. 

" The groans of nature in this nether world, 
Which Heaven has heard for ages, have an end, 
Foretold by prophets and by poets sung, 
The time of rest, the promised Sabbath comes. 
Six thousand years of ' error ' have well nigh 
Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course 
Over this sinful world ; and what remains 
Of this tempestuous state of human things 
Is merely as the working of a sea, 
Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest." 




COMMUNION WITH GOD. 

When Morn, with rosy hues, 

Illumes the purple East, 
My soul, be thou with God, 

Whose presence is a feast. 

When Noon, bright noon, arrives, 
Commune with God on high ; 

His glorious face outshines 
The splendors of the sky. 

When Night, dark night, draws on, 
Trust in His gracious name, 

For darkness and the light 
To Him are all the same. 

When Midnight veils the earth, 

And all creation sleeps, 
On bended knee adore 

The Hand that Israel keeps. 

When Wars convulse the land, 

To His pavilion flee ; 
In His most holy hand 

He holds our destiny. 

When Death his summons sends, 
Transported with the news, 

Exchange thy sorrows here, 
For everlasting praise. 



THE TESTS OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH. 

U yt LL scripture" was "given by inspiration 
jlJl of God." The Bible, therefore, is a reve- 
lation of facts or truths, which could not have 
been known by us without such a revelation. 
But it is in no proper sense a revelation, unless 
it can be understood, and understood by all 
men substantially alike. It can be in no useful 
sense a revelation, if it teaches contradictory 
doctrines, or if it teaches more than one system 
of doctrine. It must therefore teach one sys- 
tem, and not twenty, nor ten, nor two. 

Besides, it would tantalize our moral necessi- 
ties and trifle with our moral wants, if it teaches 
a system of truth which we can never be cer- 
tain that we have ascertained. It must be true, 
then, either that God has given us a book which 
claims to be a revelation of His holy will, and 
yet given it in such an obscure and ambiguous 
form that we cannot possibly understand it, and 
after the most honest and thorough investigation 



92 Fugitives. 

we may arrive at opposite results; or, He has 
given it in such a clear and intelligible manner, 
that all honest and intelligent inquirers can cer- 
tainly find out its real meaning, and truly ascer- 
tain the system of doctrine which He intended 
to communicate to men. To suppose that God 
has given us a revelation, so obscure and doubt- 
ful, that we can arrive at meanings which are 
contradictory and yet all of them true, as some 
seem to suppose, is simply absurd. Yes, even 
grave divines have practically adopted the so- 
phism of Home Tooke, who says in his " Diver- 
sions of Purley : " " Truth is nothing but every 
man troweth ; and two persons may contradict 
each other, and yet both speak truth, for the truth 
of one person may be opposite to the truth of 
another." Such solemn trifling will make the 
Bible favor any man's views, however erroneous, 
and it cannot be respected by any sound inter- 
preter. Another class allege that God has not 
given us an intelligible revelation, but this is to 
call in question His ability to do so. Unless 
they are willing to assume the responsibility of 
this implication of the character of God, they 
must admit that He has given us a revelation 
which can be understood, that the revelation 
teaches but one system of doctrine, and that the 
system, whatever it be, is the true one. 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 93 

How comes it to pass, then, that there are, at 
least, some fifty or sixty denominations all pro- 
fessing to get their systems of faith from this 
same Book, and all claiming to be equally intel- 
ligent and honest in their investigations, and 
equally desirous of arriving at the truth 4 ? How 
comes it to pass, if the Bible was given to be 
understood, and if it can be understood by all 
men substantially alike, that there are such nu- 
merous and conflicting opinions in the Christian 
world ? Men do not understand other books so 
variously. All the inhabitants of a town, city, 
or state understand Macaulay's History of Eng- 
land, or Motley's Rise of the Dutch Repub- 
lic, alike. If there is any discrepancy in the 
interpretation of the meaning of those authors, 
or of any other uninspired authors, it is so 
slight as to attract no attention, and is worthy of 
no regard. Is it then true, that men who are 
inspired of God cannot express themselves as 
clearly as uninspired men? This cannot be 
pretended. 

With the Bible, then, before us, written with 
the express purpose of being a revelation, and 
of being understood, if all men were equally 
intelligent and honest, it would seem that the 
present diversity of opinion would nearly cease, 
and the whole Christian world would be reduced 



94 Fugitives. 

substantially to one denomination. "The watch- 
men" would "see eye to eye," and the prayer of 
the Saviour, that all his children may be " one," 
would be answered. 

It must be evident that this is a subject of the 
deepest interest to the prosperity of Zion, and 
that it needs a more thorough consideration 
than it has yet received. The present division 
of Christians is unnatural, abnormal, wrong. 
It is the reproach of Christianity, not her com- 
mendation. It " was not so in the beginning," 
it will not be so in the end, and it ought not to 
be so now. The common opinion that many 
denominations are necessary to the highest effi- 
ciency of Christianity needs to be reexamined, 
for it contains elements of error which are un- 
necessarily keeping good men apart ; and to 
this work we are specially summoned at the 
present time, when Christians of various names 
are sighing over their differences, gradually ap- 
proximating each other in their faith, and mak- 
ing direct efforts, in Bible and Tract Societies and 
in multitudinous Prayer Meetings, to promote 
union among themselves. This, then, would 
seem to be the most auspicious season which 
has occurred for many centuries, to see if they 
cannot be brought to a more common doctrinal 
basis, not be surrendering any important truth, 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 95 

but by united efforts to find out what the truth 
really is. Perhaps it is too much to say, con- 
sidering the infirmities of the human mind, that 
all men, however intelligent and honest, can be 
expected to think exactly alike. There are such 
differences of idiosyncrasy, of temperament, of 
associations, habits, manners, customs, that with 
any degree of light we may obtain in the pres- 
ent world, it perhaps is not to be expected, that 
on every minor point of doctrine, they will ever 
entirely agree. But it is not too much to expect 
and demand, that, on every fundamental point, — 
on every point that is necessary to the salvation 
of the soul and to a symmetrical development 
of Christian character, all honest and intelligent 
men can be brought to a real harmony of belief. 

If this be so, there must be some methods of 
finding out what the Bible really teaches, and 
what the truth really is. If we mistake not, 
there are four such methods : 

I. The first is to apply to the Bible the same 
rules of interpretation which we use in deter- 
mining the meaning of all other books. 

There are certain rules or canons of exegesis 
which have their basis in the common sense of 
mankind, and which all men agree to use in the 
interpretation of all written or printed books 
and documents. Some of these rules are the 



96 Fugitives, 

following: — to consider all the circumstances 
in which the writer was placed ; his age, educa- 
tion, habits, taste, employment, &c, — to ex- 
plain any doubtful passages by those which are 
clear; — to interpret ambiguous expressions by 
the general scope or object of the argument the 
writer then had in hand ; — to make him as far 
as possible his own interpreter; — to reject no 
doctrine which he advances merely because it is 
new to us, or incomprehensible by us, provided 
it is supported by competent proof; — to inter- 
pret his language by intendment, that is, by 
what we know from his other writings, if he has 
written anything else, he must have intended to 
say ; — and, finally, never to allow our early 
education, or wishes, or interests, or prejudices, 
or theories, or sect, or party to have the least 
weight whatever in determining what he means. 
These, and similar principles of interpretation, 
every man knows are sound. They are axioma- 
tic truths, accepted alike by all men of common 
sense and common judgment. They are the 
property of no party, but the common property 
of all parties. They favor no party but the right 
party. They are used in all our courts of justice 
in determining the meaning of contested docu- 
ments; and they are daily used, both consciously 
and unconsciously, by all men in settling cases 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 97 

of doubt. These rules, which we all so faith- 
fully apply to determine the meaning of the am- 
biguous phrases of uninspired writings, we are 
also to apply, with the same fidelity to the 
Bible; and we are to embrace the results to 
which they conduct us, however much they 
may conflict with our wishes, or vary from our 
preconceived opinions. A faithful application 
of these canons of criticism is, therefore, one 
most important means of ascertaining the true 
meaning of the Scriptures. 

To bring these rules within the understand- 
ing of every mind, and to show their value, we 
will apply them to two or three cases of dis- 
puted texts. 

Gal. v. 4. "Ye are fallen from grace." Now, 
what does the Apostle mean ? From this ex- 
pression, one denomination have gathered their 
doctrine of "falling from grace," or that real 
Christians can relapse into a state of impenitence 
and finally be lost. Is this the true interpreta- 
tion ? Let us apply one of the rules just stated, 
and see how the case stands. One canon of in- 
terpretation is, to consider the object and scope of 
the writer in the passage under consideration. 

By carefully reading the verses before and 
after that where this phrase occurs, we find that 
the Apostle was urging the Galatians to " stand 



98 Fugitives. 

fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made 
them free," not to observe the Jewish rite of 
circumcision for justification, but to depend alone 
on the righteousness of Christ. He tells them 
that if they do not, they have "fallen from 
grace," that is, they have abandoned, given up 
the mode of salvation by grace, and have gone 
back to the old Jewish plan of salvation by 
works. You see, therefore, by the object of the 
writer, that he was discussing a subject entirely 
different from the question whether a Christian 
can become an impenitent sinner again. That 
point was not then in his mind. He was not 
discussing it directly or indirectly, nor, indeed, 
was he making the remotest allusion to it what- 
ever. By the rule, then, which should always 
bind us in interpreting language, we cannot 
honestly get anything out of this phrase which 
bears, in the slightest degree, upon the much 
agitated question of " falling from grace." The 
whole theory, then, of that class of Christians, 
so far certainly as this passage is concerned, is at 
once destroyed. Their interpretation is purely 
one of sound, not of sense. Luther says, " We 
must not make God's word mean what we 
wish; we must not bend it, but allow it to 
bend us" 

Take another case. Rom. vi. 3 : " Therefore 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 99 

we are buried with Him by baptism into death." 
Col. ii. 12: "Buried with Him in baptism." 
From these expressions another denomination 
think that they make out a strong argument in 
favor of immersion. But any man of ordinary 
intelligence who will faithfully apply the proper 
rule of interpretation to these passages, and just 
inquire what the Apostle was writing about, or 
what was the object of his argument, will find 
that he was not discussing the mode of baptism 
at all, nor indeed was he making the slightest 
reference to it whatsoever. He was simply 
urging the truth that Christians ought to be as 
dead to this world in their supreme affections, as 
a man is who is literally dead and buried up in 
the ground. This was all he said, and all he 
meant. To put any other sense upon his words, 
and especially one which is clearly outside of 
the object and intent of his argument, is clearly 
absurd as well as morally wrong. It is mak- 
ing him say something which he did not mean 
to say, and it is therefore plainly forbidden by 
all sound rules of interpretation. The entire 
argument of our Baptist friends in favor of im- 
mersion, so far as these texts are concerned, is 
therefore at once overturned. 

Take one case more. Christ says, " I and my 
Father are one ; " and He also says, " My Father 



] oo Fugitives. 

is greater than I." Both these statements are 
equally canonical and true, and neither of them 
is to be rejected nor explained away. We must 
then, instead of repudiating either averment, be- 
cause it is apparently in conflict with the other, 
or really in conflict with our preconceived opin- 
ions, look around us for some hypothesis respect- 
ing the person of Christ, on which both these 
statements can be made to harmonize. On ex- 
amination we find that the Trinitarian hypothe- 
sis of two natures in the person of Christ, the 
one divine the other human, is the only one on 
which the apparent contradiction can be recon- 
ciled. This hypothesis does reconcile it, and it 
must therefore be the true one. Upon any 
other, you cannot make the Bible consistent 
with itself. Upon any other, you are under the 
necessity of rejecting a part of what it says 
respecting the person of Christ, and are obliged 
to take ground which is clearly infidel. The 
common or Orthodox doctrine, then, that Christ 
possesses two natures, that He is both very 
and God very man, must be the real teaching 
of the Bible on that subject. 

Thus, it appears, that it is only by a persistent 
application of the rule, that we are to let the 
Bible speak for itself, and that we are never to 
reject any part of it or force our own theories 



The Tests of Religious Truth, 101 

upon it, that we can arrive at its true mean- 
ing. 

A very large part of the differences among 
believers in the Bible has arisen from the neg- 
lect of these obvious principles of interpreta- 
tion, and the adoption of others which neces- 
sarily lead astray. Thomas Aquinas proved to 
his own satisfaction, and, as he thought, to the 
satisfaction of others, that inferiors in the church 
are bound to submit to superiors, by these words, 
" The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feed- 
ing beside them." But the Angelic Doctor was 
not the only man, who, in his interpretation of 
the Bible, has set at nought all common sense. 
Not a few of his disciples yet survive. A blind 
faith in tradition or parental instruction, repairing 
to the Bible to prove our present belief, substi- 
tuting sound for sense, words for things, and 
fanciful meanings for real ones, have long been, 
and still are, most fruitful sources of error. We- 
renfels, a Dutch commentator, whose works 
were published at Amsterdam one hundred and 
fifty years ago, says, with profound truth, " He 
that goes to the Bible to find his own faith, will 
be sure to find it there ; " and yet this is probably 
the practice of a large majority of those who 
regard themselves as honest interpreters of the 
Word of God. Nothing will so effectually 



102 Fugitives. 

dispel error from the churches, and bring honest 
men of all denominations into substantial agree- 
ment, as a persistent application to the Bible of 
these canons of interpretation which, when once 
stated, are seen by all men to be intrinsically- 
just and proper. It is a matter of the highest 
felicitation that the principles which underlie all 
real union of theological belief, are such as be- 
long to no one denomination, but principles in 
which all of them have a common property and 
a common faith ; — principles which all men 
acknowledge to be sound, and which commend 
themselves to the judgment of pure and univer- 
sal reason. They, therefore, bind all interpreters. 
II. Another method of ascertaining what the 
Bible teaches is, by applying to it what is called 
the analogy of faith. " If any man prophesy," 
says the Apostle Paul, " let him prophesy accord- 
ing to the proportion," or the analogy " of faith." 
By the phrase " analogy of faith," we mean the 
general belief of the Christian church in all the 
ages. If the Church of Christ has, in all ages 
and nations, believed any one set of doctrines, 
be it what it may, it is strong presumptive ev- 
idence that those doctrines are the true ones. 
This argument proceeds on the ground that real 
Christians cannot be fundamentally wrong in 
their religious belief. Fundamental error is pre- 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 103 

eluded by the very supposition, for men who 
hold such error cannot be Christians at all. 
This argument also proceeds on the ground 
that God will so order the lot of his children 
in life, their means of education, their habits of 
thought, and their spiritual taste, that, in search- 
ing the Scriptures, they will arrive at results 
which are generally correct. What, then, has 
been the faith of the great mass of the Christian 
world? By examining ecclesiastical history, and 
the creeds and confessions which have been 
adopted in all the Christian centuries, we find 
that they teach, with greater or less explicitness, 
the doctrines of the Unity, Spirituality, and 
Trinity of the Godhead ; the Supreme Divinity 
of the Lord Jesus Christ ; the Personality and 
Deity of the Holy Ghost ; the fall of man ; his 
need of regeneration; the vicarious atonement 
of Christ; justification by faith and not by 
works ; the general Judgment ; the eternal du- 
ration of the rewards and punishments of the 
future world ; the Christian Sabbath ; and the 
Ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. 
A cordial belief in these great truths has always 
been demanded by intelligent Christians, with 
but few exceptions, as a prerequisite to Chris- 
tian communion. That there have been among 
them minor differences of belief is very true, and 



1 04 Fugitives. 

that some have held views which to us appear 
quite inconsistent with an intelligent acceptance 
of these doctrines, is equally true; but, with 
every abatement, these truths have constituted 
the substance of their faith. This was substan- 
tially the faith of Paul and John and Peter; of 
Polycarp and Irenseus and Ignatius; of Cyp- 
rian and Basil and Justin Martyr ; of Constan- 
tine and Chrysostom and Augustine; of Ful- 
gentius and Justine and Gregory the First; of 
Bede and Ansel m and Bernard; of WicklifFe 
and Luther and Calvin; of Cranmer and Bax- 
ter and Howe ; of Owen and Milton and Locke ; 
of Watts and Doddridge and Scott ; of Ed- 
wards and Chalmers and Dwight ; of the Wai- 
denses, the Armenians, and the Nestorians ; of 
the Church of Geneva, the Church of England, 
and the Church of Scotland. This was also the 
faith of the Puritan Fathers of New England ; 
of the Scotch Covenanters and Reformed Dutch 
which settled New York, and of the persecuted 
Huguenots who fled from France to South Car- 
olina. This is also the faith of an immense 
majority of all the professed Christians in these 
United States, and of the numerous missionarv 
churches which they have formed in other lands. 
This must then be taken as the Consensus of the 
Church of God on earth. It has always held 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 105 

substantially that system of religious doctrine 
which is familiarly known among us as the 
Orthodox or Evangelical system. If you would 
then ascertain the real meaning of the Scrip- 
tures, stop and listen reverently to the great 
voices which are sounding along the galleries 
of time, — to the accordant chorus of the great 
and the good of all the ages. Their decision is 
the right decision. In this matter the voice of 
the people is emphatically the voice of God. 
So far then as the analogy of faith throws light 
on this subject, and it throws much, it shows 
us what the truth really is. 1 

It is not at all inconsistent with this argu- 
ment, that the later Confessions of Faith are 
more full and explicit on some points than were 
those of the patristic and medisevai ages. They 
became more full, just as rapidly as different her- 
etics denied the essential doctrines of grace, and 
brought them under direct and more critical ex- 
amination. It was the denial by Arius of the 
true doctrine of the Trinity, which led to the 

1 In precise harmony with these views, Professor Shedd, the 
author of The History of Christian Doctrine, says : — "As the 
theologian passes the several ages of the Church in review, and be- 
comes acquainted with the results to which the general mind of the 
Church has come in interpreting the Scriptures, he runs little haz- 
ard of error in regard to their real meaning and contents.'''' — Dis- 
courses and Essays, p. 151. 
J 4 



1 06 Fugitives. 

calling of the Council of Nice in 325, and to 
the formal insertion of that doctrine into their 
creed. The Augsburg Confession, drawn up by- 
Luther and Melancthon, in 1530, to meet the 
errors of their day, more accurately stated than 
had been done before, the real Divinity of Christ, 
his substitution and vicarious sacrifice, and the 
necessity, freeness, and efficacy of Divine Grace. 
The Synod of Dort, in 1619, defined with greater 
clearness than any preceding Confession, the im- 
portant difference between the doctrines of Cal- 
vinism and Arminianism ; and the Westminster 
Confession, in 1643, surpassed all its predeces- 
sors for symmetry, comprehensiveness, and com- 
pleteness. The Westminster Confession has 
met with such general favor among Evangelical 
Christians, that few attempts have since been 
made to construct a better one ; — for the Cam- 
bridge Platform in 1648, the Savoy Confession 
in 1658, the Boston Confession in 1680, and 
the Saybrook Platform in 1708, are little else 
than mere reaffirmances of the doctrines of the 
Westminster. Thus, it appears, that for more 
than seventeen hundred years, the wisest, holiest 
men in all the Church have put forth their most 
strenuous exertions, by a continuous and self- 
correcting process, to penetrate and reach and 
enucleate the inmost heart and meaning of the 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 107 

Scriptures ; and if they have failed, success would 
seem to be impossible to human endeavor. But 
they have not failed. This brief historic review 
of the progress which has been made in collect- 
ing the more important truths of the Bible into 
forms and symbols, till those efforts have been 
exhausted by such close approximation to per- 
fect results, shows quite conclusively that they 
have succeeded, and shows, too, what those truths 
really are. 

III. Another method of ascertaining the real 
meaning of the Bible is the experimental, or a 
practical co?npliance with the will of God as far 
as we now know it. " If any will do His will, 
he shall know of the doctrine." "Then shall 
ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord." 
God " manifests " Himself to His real children, 
as He does not unto the world. " Blessed art 
thou, Simon Bar Jona, for flesh and blood hath 
not revealed unto thee, but my Father which is 
in heaven." The principle here asserted is that, 
to understand the spiritual import of the Bible, 
the moral feelings of the inquirer must be in 
harmony with the truth itself. The eye cannot 
see unless it is adapted to the light ; the ear can- 
not hear, unless it is adapted to the laws of sound. 
So, too, the understanding is often at fault upon 
some of the truths of revelation, when the heart 



108 Fugitives. 

is not in harmony with them. It is a pregnant 
fact, and one which the " wisdom of this world " 
cannot appreciate, that the Scriptures, when 
speaking of man in his intellectual capacity, do 
not speak of the understanding or the reasoning 
faculty, but of the " understanding heart," — 
making the heart to be the great intuitive or- 
gan. This is the psychology of the Bible. 
This "understanding heart," produced by the 
special influences of the Holy Spirit in regener- 
ation, is the key which opens to the mind the 
wondrous system of truth contained in the 
Scriptures. Let any man, then, become a real 
Christian, and his mind will be so enlightened, 
his will so subdued, his affections so purified, 
that he will understand and cordially embrace 
the great doctrines of the Gospel. He will then 
have an experimental conviction of their consist- 
ency, sweetness, harmony, truth. He will no 
longer " see through a glass darkly." " The 
entrance of thy words giveth light." " It giveth 
understanding unto the simple." 

Nor is there anything mystical or fanatical in 
this test. This mode of arriving at the truth 
has been tried and found successful by many of 
the strongest and best informed minds the 
world has even seen. Paul, Augustine, Bacon, 
Locke, Boyle, Boerhaave, More, Milton, Luther, 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 109 

Newton, Wilberforce, Edwards, Washington, 
Hall, Fuller, and multitudes of others scarcely 
less distinguished, have experimentally done "the 
will " of God, and have thus been led to right 
results. Every deeply experienced Christian is 
himself a proof of the infallibility of this mode 
of arriving at the truth. 

The illuminations of the Spirit in regenera- 
tion are wonderful. In thousands of cases diffi- 
culties have thus been solved, and doubts cleared 
up, which no human arguments could have 
removed. Sceptics have thus been rooted and 
grounded in the truth, and been brought not 
only to believe, but to adore. Indeed, the en- 
lightening influences of the Holy Spirit are an 
infallible remedy for all doubt and darkness. 

If any man, then, is sincerely desirous of 
knowing what the Bible teaches, and yet is 
quite unable to make up his mind amid the 
conflicting opinions around him, let him at once 
become a real Christian, and he shall certainly 
" know of the doctrine." Let him humble him- 
self at the foot of the Cross. Let him " receive 
the kingdom of Heaven, as a little child." No 
man ever tried this remedy in vain. The words 
of Anselm are replete with the highest wis- 
dom : — "I do not know in order that I may 
believe, but I believe in order that I may know." 



no Fugitives. 

And the profound Pascal says, in the truest 
philosophy : — " Divine things are infinitely 
above nature, and God only can place them 
in the soul. He has designed that they shall 
pass from the heart into the head, and not from 
the head into the heart ; and so, as it is neces- 
sary to know human things in order to love 
them, it is necessary to love divine things, in or- 
der to know them." And again he affirms, "there 
is light enough in the Bible for those whose sin- 
cere wish it is to see; and just darkness enough 
to confound those who do not wish to see." 
John Norton, of Boston, used to say, — " Men 
do not need new light, but new sight" and that 
is the difficulty still. Dr. William Gordon, a 
converted sceptic, says, " I reasoned, and de- 
bated, and investigated, but I found no peace 
till I came to the gospel as a little child ; till I 
received it as a babe. Then such a light was 
shed abroad in my heart, that I saw the whole 
scheme at once, and I found pleasure the most 
indescribable." John Newton, when entangled 
by scepticism, resolved to test the truth of Chris- 
tianity by seeking divine influence promised to 
prayer, and immediately found relief. 

This experimental insight into the meaning 
of the Bible, is a witness whose testimony can- 
not be set aside. It is the evidence of con- 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 1 1 1 

sciousness. Nothing can be more certain, noth- 
ing more conclusive. Paul says, " I know in 
whom I have believed." This is that wonder- 
ful tenacious faith which can be accounted for 
upon no worldly principles ; a faith which has 
triumphantly sustained many a Christian at the 
stake, and made him sing, "None but Christ," 
"None but Christ," as the encircling flames 
have dismissed his joyful spirit to join "the glo- 
rious company of the apostles, the goodly fel- 
lowship of the prophets, and the noble army of 
the martyrs." 

IV. Another mode of determining what relig- 
ious doctrines are truly scrip tual is, to inquire 
whether they are acceptable or repulsive to the 
feelings of the natural heart. St. Paul tells us 
that " the carnal mind is enmity against God, 
is not subject to his law, neither indeed can be." 
"The natural man receiveth not the things of 
the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto 
him ; neither can he know them, because they 
are spiritually discerned." 

This same test of truth is more formally set 
forth by the apostle John. Speaking of the 
" false teachers " which abounded then just as 
they do now, he says : — " They are of the 
world, therefore speak they of the world, and 
the world heareth them." "We," that is, him- 



1 1 2 Fugitives. 

self and his fellow-apostles, "are of God. He 
that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not 
of God, heareth not us. Hereby," that is by 
this test, " know we the spirit of truth, and 
the spirit of error." The fact is here affirmed 
by these inspired men, that the distinctive truths 
of the Bible are cordially received and loved by 
all real Christians, but that they are totally re- 
pugnant to the feelings of the "world," or of 
the natural heart. Now, by the application of 
this test, we have the highest presumptive proof 
that certain religious doctrines are true, and that 
certain others are false. 

According to this test, any religious doctrines 
which are distasteful to the unrenewed heart, 
are therefore true. The very fact that they are 
offensive is the strongest presumptive evidence 
that they are right. Instead of being a suffi- 
cient reason, as many seem to believe, why they 
should be rejected, it is the scriptural reason why 
they should be embraced. And there is nothing 
arbitrary or unphilosophical in this test. It is 
based on the well-known fact of the exceeding 
sinfulness of the human heart, — of its utter 
aversion to holiness. "Vinegar upon nitre " will 
not more naturally produce a violent efferves- 
cence, than the peculiar truths of the Bible, 
when laid upon the naked feelings of the un- 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 113 

sanctified heart. In such conditions, that heart 
will always recoil, and will frequently give ex- 
pression to its strong displeasure. It was so in 
the days of Micaiah and Ezekiel, of Christ and 
the apostles, and it is so still. 

Now, while we deeply deplore this opposi- 
tion of the unrenewed heart to the peculiar 
doctrines of grace, it is of no small service in 
enabling us to determine what the truth really is. 
No unsanctified heart is opposed to error. It is 
satisfied with it. It wishes to have the preacher 
preach " smooth things, and prophecy deceits." 
And not unfrequently the pulpit yields to this 
demand, and when it does, the people sleep 
profoundly over their eternal interests. World- 
liness prevails. An appalling indifference to the 
destiny of the soul, a growing laxity of morals, 
and a general deterioration of society are the 
natural and inevitable results. 

But this was not the way in which prophets 
and apostles preached. It was not the way in 
which Peter addressed the awakened multitude 
on the day of Pentecost, nor Paul the jailer 
at Philippi, Felix on the judgment-seat, and 
Agrippa on the throne. It was not the way 
in which Luther and Calvin, Whitefield and 
Edwards, Davies and Griffin, Nettleton and 
Summerfield preached the Gospel. Nor is this 



1 14 Fugitives. 

the practice of any minister who has been bap- 
tized in revivals of religion, and honored of God 
in the conversion of men. All pure revivals 
stamp the seal of the Divine approbation upon 
the truths which produce such results, and every 
man knows that they are the doctrines of the 
Evangelical System, and of none other. " Is 
not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord ? " 
Put the truths of the Bible into the conscience 
of any unconverted man, and you put a " fire " 
into his conscience. " The word of God," 
rightly interpreted and properly felt, " is quick 
and powerful, sharper than any two-edged 
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of 
the soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow, 
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of 
the heart." 

When, then, you find any religious doctrines 
which "cut you to the heart," which execute 
upon you the terrors of the law, which make 
you feel that you are a guilty and ruined man, 
which agitate you by day and allow you no rest 
by night, which convince you that you can 
never save yourself, and that God must do it or 
you will perish; — you may be morally certain 
that you have now arrived at the very verities 
of the Bible. Error does not make men feel 
so. Hold these truths, then, close up to your 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 1 1 5 

heart and conscience. If your feelings recoil, 
press them the closer to your soul. If your 
heart rebels, urge them with still more awaken- 
ing force upon yourself, and cease not the effort 
till you are slain by the truth, and brought, a 
trembling sinner, to the feet of Jesus for pardon, 
peace, and life. 

On a review, then, of this whole subject, we 
see that there are four distinct methods of 
ascertaining what the Bible teaches : the exe- 
getical, the historical, the experimental, and the 
executive. It would probably be presumptu- 
ous to affirm, that any one denomination hold 
the truths of the Bible in their absolute perfect- 
ness. But we certainly know of none which 
accepts and satisfies these four conditions so 
fully as the Orthodox Congregationalists. We 
know of none which applies to the Scriptures 
the common rules for interpreting language with 
more intelligence, and unflinching fidelity; none 
whose creed is so clearly accredited by the con- 
current belief of the Christian Church in all the 
ages ; none which has insisted, with so much 
earnestness, upon the most thorough Christian 
experience ; and certainly none which has held 
and proclaimed, at least until within the last few 
years, the distinguishing, humbling doctrines of 
grace, with such clearness and power. These four 



il6 Fugitives. 

tests of truth, when faithfully applied, make sad 
havoc of hierarchical church polities and lax 
theologies ; 1 of printed forms of worship, and 
showy clerical vestments ; of the schismatic pre- 
tensions of all Churchmen, high and low, Rom- 
ish and Episcopal, who will not acknowledge 
the validity of the ordination of any other cler- 
gymen, because they cannot, any more than 
themselves, trace back, in an unbroken line, 
their official pedigree to Peter ; of that narrow 
spirit which, in its turn, unchurches the whole 
Christian world, because, forsooth, it will not 
baptize in the most inconvenient and uncom- 
fortable of all possible modes, affirming, by a 
singular misconception of the nature of the 
Christian ordinances, that the burdensomeness 
of the mode is a proof of its truth; of that 

1 A hierarchy is a system of church government, where the 
power is usurped by Popes, Bishops, or ecclesiastical courts. It is 
grounded on the principle, that the people are incompetent to think 
and act and vote in their own religious affairs, and that they must 
be governed by a spiritual aristocracy. The Roman Catholic sys- 
tem is a hierarchy, Episcopacy is a hierarchy, Methodist Episco- 
pacy is a hierarchy, and Presbyterianism is a partial hierarchy. 
Congregationalism, in distinction from them all, vests the power, 
where it should be, in the hands of the people, and educates them, 
as all men should be educated both in church and state, to under- 
stand their rights and to intelligently govern themselves. It holds 
that the people are competent to do their own thinking and acting 
and voting. This is in harmony with the evident simplicity and re- 
publicanism of the primitive churches. 



The Tests of Religious Truth. 117 

superficial theory, which virtually severs our 
connection with Adam, which holds that sin is 
originated, sometime after our birth, by the ac- 
tion of the "lower propensities," and, with a 
few saving references to the Holy Spirit, makes 
all the regeneration we need the result of the 
self-determination of the will ; and finally of that 
system of rationalism, which rejects the more 
substantive parts of the Bible, which requires 
nothing but a decently moral life to fit us for 
heaven, and yet refuses to admit that those 
whose lives are not moral will be "damned." 
These and similar errors have no basis in the 
real teachings of the Bible, but that great sys- 
tem of doctrine, which has been the support 
and the rejoicing of confessors, saints, and mar- 
tyrs, in all the centuries, is there luminously 
revealed. 



-CQ 



THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY AND 
SLAVERY. 

AN article which has been elaborately pre- 
pared by " A Massachusetts Clergyman," 
and published by the New York Observer and 
the Puritan Recorder, presumptively with their 
approbation of its contents, is worthy of respect- 
ful consideration. If, however, upon a thorough 
examination, it be found to contain fundamental 
sophistries, it only proves, for the thousandth 
time, that sophistries, especially upon warmly 
controverted subjects, are " capable of deceiving 
very respectable minds." 

I shall attempt to expose the leading " soph- 
isms " in the critique which " A Massachusetts 
Clergyman," has lately published in the papers 
above mentioned, upon Dr. Wayland's Letter 
to the Tract Society, and then leave the public 
to judge of the merits of the case. " He that 
is first in his own cause seemeth just, but his 
neighbor cometh and searcheth him." 

I. The first sophistry, in the article referred 



American 'Tract Society and Slavery. 1 19 

to, lies in what the author calls the "implied 
assumption" of Dr. Wayland, that the Tract 
Society has "bound itself to publish a specific 
condemnation of every form of immorality." 
And again, he says, Dr. Wayland is guilty of 
"the grave logical error of assuming that the 
Society is under moral obligation to publish on 
every subject, which has," according to its Con- 
stitution, " anything to do with the interests of 
vital godliness and sound morality." He then 
argues the point as follows : — 

" The Society is under no such obligation. 
It is at full liberty, legally and morally, to use 
its discretion in the selection of subjects on 
which it will publish, and on which it will re- 
frain from publishing. If in the exercise of its 
best discretion, it sees fit to leave the publishing 
of Tracts on Temperance, wholly to the Ameri- 
can Temperance Union, or other Temperance 
Societies, it has a perfect right to do so," etc. 

But Dr. Wayland nowhere " implies," so far 
as I can discover, that the Society is under any 
obligation to publish on every conceivable subject, 
which has anything to do with " the interests of 
vital godliness and sound morality," for then " I 
suppose that even the world itself could not 
contain the books that should be written." For 
"A Massachusetts Clergyman" to attempt to 



1 20 Fugitives. 

convict Dr. Wayland of a " sophism," by push- 
ing his argument to this most extreme limit, is 
to do violence to the dictates of common sense. 
It is to convict himself of great unfairness. Dr. 
Wayland's language is to be interpreted accord- 
ing to its most natural and obvious import. 
While he does not mean to include in the 
Society's duty every possible relation and form 
of truth, he does mean to include all those sub- 
jects which are the most important, of which 
Slavery is certainly one. The extreme limit to 
which " A Massachusetts Clergyman " would 
crowd him, is clearly controlled by two consid- 
erations. One is, that the Society's funds may 
never be sufficient to allow them to publish on 
every subject which may possibly have some- 
thing " to do with the interests of vital godli- 
ness and sound morality ; " and the other is, 
their "best discretion" may not allow it, if their 
funds should. But is it to be supposed that the 
subject of Slavery has such a remote and un- 
practical relation to " the interests of vital god- 
liness and sound morality," especially in these 
United States, as to exclude it from the category 
of the Society's obligations? Is it to be be- 
lieved, in this nineteenth century of the reign of 
Christ, when the uprising of the nations the 
world over shows their determination to shake 



American Iract Society and Slavery. 121 

off every species of despotism, civil and ecclesi- 
astical; and when Slavery as it exists in this 
country, — professedly the freest on the face of 
the earth, — is the scorn and abhorrence of all 
Christendom, that a Tract Society, claiming to 
be national, ought to be silent on that moment- 
ous theme? Is it credible that the subject is not 
important enough to receive the notice of such 
a catholic and Christian Institution? Indeed, so 
far from its being excluded from the Society's 
duty, because it has scarcely any appreciable 
relation to human affairs, there is perhaps none 
within the wide circle of terrestrial interests, 
which has more points of contact with " vital 
godliness and sound morality." It surrounds us 
like the atmosphere, — ever present and all per- 
vading. It meets us in all our relations, civil 
and political, domestic and ecclesiastical, moral 
and religious. Attention to it cannot therefore 
be set aside by the logical refinement, that the 
Society has not "undertaken" to publish on 
"all" subjects which relate to "the interests of 
vital godliness and sound morality." 

But " A Massachusetts Clergyman " says that 
" if the Society, in the exercise of its best dis- 
cretion, sees fit to leave the publication of 
Tracts " on certain subjects, " to other Societies, 
it has a perfect right to do so ; " and, by parity 
16 



122 Fugitives. 

of reasoning, " if the Society, in the exercise of 
its best discretion, sees fit" to publish on the 
subject of Slavery, "it has a perfect right to do 
so." This incautious admission is fatal to his 
argument. For what is the present " best dis- 
cretion " of the Society, as to publishing Tracts 
on Slavery ? Why, plainly, that they ought to 
publish such Tracts. Being in some doubt 
what their duty was in the case, the Society 
chose a Committee of fifteen most intelligent 
clergymen and laymen, to make a careful and 
thorough inquiry into this very point. After a 
prayerful and elaborate investigation of the 
whole subject they reported that though the 
" political aspects " of Slavery cannot be med- 
dled with, " those moral duties which grow out 
of the existence of Slavery, as well as those 
moral evils and vices which it is known to pro- 
mote, can and ought to be discussed" in the pub- 
lications of the Society. At its last annual 
meeting, this report, after solemn discussion, 
was unanimously adopted, and the present "best 
discretion" of the Society therefore plainly is, 
that it ought to publish Tracts on that subject. 
Though it has never " undertaken " to publish 
on "#//" topics which, by possibility, have some- 
thing "to do with the interests of vital godliness 
and sound morality," they have now "under- 



American Tract Society and Slavery. 123 

taken," "in the exercise of their best discretion," 
to publish on Slavery, and it is hoped that they 
will not stultify that " discretion." The allega- 
tion, therefore, which "A Massachusetts Clergy- 
man " has made, that Dr. Wayland holds that 
the Society must publish on Slavery, because it 
has undertaken to publish on all subjects relat- 
ing to "the interests of vital godliness and sound 
morality," is incorrect, and his argument in proof 
of such assumption is a specimen of special 
pleading which destroys itself. His own assump- 
tion rather is, that the Society has a moral right 
to suppress a part of the will of God, even 
against the dictates of* its "best discretion." 

II. " A Massachusetts Clergyman " alleges 
that the reason why the Rev. John Summerfield, 
at the time the Tract Society was formed, pro- 
posed to strike out from the first draft of the 
Constitution the words, "evangelical Christians 
of all denominations," and substitute therefor 
the words, "all evangelical Christians," was to 
prevent the Tracts from being tested by the 
Creeds of the several contracting parties. The 
writer of this article was present at the time 
that amendment was proposed and adopted ; 
and he can truly say, so far as his vivid recollec- 
tions of that novel and exciting scene serve him, 
that the only object was to simplify the arrange- 



1 24 Fugitives. 

ment, by getting rid of the word " denomina- 
tions." Such a Society was then nearly a "new 
thing under the sun," and the great problem to 
be solved was, how individual members of the 
various evangelical communions could become 
members of a common Society, by the payment 
of a sum of money, exclude everything which 
was offensive in the term " denominations," from 
their articles of union, and publish Tracts that 
should not interfere with their dogmatic pecu- 
liarities. How was it possible, then, to guard 
against such interference, except by bringing all 
the Tracts to the test of their respective formu- 
laries of faith? Mr. Summerfield's object in his 
amendment was, by no means, to prevent the 
Tracts from being thus tested, but only to make 
the plan as simple and unobjectionable as pos- 
sible. It was to create a Society which could 
work on ground common to all the evangelical 
denominations ; and that could be done only by 
comparing their Tracts, not with the opinions 
of every member of the great " sacramental 
host," but with the doctrines of their several 
creeds. 

" A Massachusetts Clergyman " also misinter- 
prets, as I think, the sixth article in the Consti- 
tution of the Society, which declares that "no 
two members of the Publishing Committee shall 



American Tract Society and Slavery. 125 

be from the same ecclesiastical connection." 
The object here was simply distributive, and not 
at all to prevent the Tracts from being tested 
by the creeds of the associated parties. As many 
as six or seven denominations were concerned 
in the formation of the Tract Society, but the 
first Publishing Committee consisted of four 
gentlemen only, the Rev. Drs. Milnor, Spring 
and Edwards, and Rev. Mr. Summerfield. The 
sole object of the sixth article therefore was, to 
distribute the members of this Committee as 
widely as possible among the different denomi- 
nations, that no one might have a preponderating 
influence, and then there were not enough to go 
round. The true interpretation of this article is 
therefore in harmony with the view taken of it 
by Dr. Wayland, and not with that of "A Mas- 
sachusetts Clergyman." 

To suppose, as "A Massachusetts Clergy- 
man " does, that the Publishing Committee are 
not bound to test their Tracts by the creeds of 
the evangelical churches, nor by the personal 
opinions of every individual member, nor yet 
indeed to conform to the requirements of the Society 
itself as expressed by their unanimous vote at 
the last annual meeting, is to erect that Com- 
mittee into an entirely independent body. It is 
to confer on them autocratic power. It is to 



1 26 Fugitives. 

make them amenable in no degree to their con- 
stituents for the character of the Tracts they 
issue. It is almost needless to say, that, in these 
democratic times, such a principle, carried out, 
will work the ruin of any institution, whether 
religious or political. Especially will it destroy 
any Benevolent Society, which is entirely de- 
pendent on the Christian public for its funds. 
Besides, I am credibly informed, that this is also 
the opinion of some others of the distinguished 
friends of the Tract Society, who approve of the 
present course of the Publishing Committee. 
But a doctrine which is suicidal, is therefore 
absurd. 

" To this complexion it has come at last," be- 
cause " A Massachusetts Clergyman " and those 
who think with him, are unwilling that the 
Tracts should be subjected to the only test pro- 
vided by the founders of the Society, — the only 
test indeed which is pertinent to the case, — the 
only test which can determine questions, as be- 
tween the various evangelical denominations who 
were parties to the arrangement, and not as be- 
tween any other parties, political or reformatory, 
sectional or religious. 

That the subject of Slavery was not intended 
to be excluded by the only restriction in the 
Constitution of the Society is clear, because it 



American Tract Society and Slavery. 127 

was not referred to in any of the debates upon 
its adoption as one of the things to be guarded 
against, and also because that subject was actu- 
ally presented in some of the earlier publications 
of the Society, without any offence to the South. 
Cotton Mather's Essays to do Good, and the 
Memoirs of Mary Lundie Duncan contained im- 
portant views of Slavery, which then " received 
the approbation of all evangelical Christians " 
in the Southern States. It was several years 
after the publication of those books before a lisp 
of objection was heard ; and if there has been 
since that time any change of public feeling in 
that section of the country, it is one of those 
changes for which the Constitution has made no 
provision, against which it was never intended 
to guard, and which therefore calls for no 
change of the original policy of the Society. 
It is no reply to this to say, that the founders 
of the Society would have excluded Slavery, if 
they had foreseen the present division of opinion 
on that subject among "evangelical Christians." 
What they would have done is simply a matter 
of opinion, respecting which there would prob- 
ably be as great a diversity of judgment among 
us, as there is upon the main question itself, and 
therefore it can form no proper element for the 
decision of the point now before the Christian 



1 28 Fugitives, 

public. What they actually did is the only 
question now to be determined ; and the histor- 
ical and collateral evidence that they did not 
intend to exclude Slavery is abundant and 
cumulative. 

In settling disputed questions, it is oftentimes 
of much service to advert to first principles. Re- 
curring, then, to the great object for which the 
Tract Society was formed, which was " to dif- 
fuse a knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, as 
the Redeemer of sinners, and to promote the 
interests of vital godliness and sound morality," 
and coupling this with the fact recently an- 
nounced by the Tract Society in Boston, that 
the Southern States had at that time "their local 
Societies and distinct fields of effort, which were 
yielded up at once, and became merged in the 
great plan of a National Evangelical Union," 
and all this without demanding or expecting 
that the Society would be silent on Slavery; 
these facts, I submit, prove conclusively what 
its original course was, and what its present 
course ought to be. 

The only way to break the force of this argu- 
ment would seem to be for a new denomination 
to arise at the South, claiming to be " evangeli- 
cal," and yet adopt a Creed which shall teach 
" the moral excellence of Slavery as it there ex- 



American Uract Society and Slavery. 129 

ists; that it is an institution which is authorized 
and supported by the Bible ; that the members 
may buy and sell their fellow-men; that they 
may break up and separate families whenever 
their pecuniary interests demand it; and that, in 
their treatment of their female servants, they 
may disregard the great law of chastity ; " and 
with this Creed and the price of membership in 
their hands, present themselves to the Tract 
Society, and demand admission to its privileges, 
on the ground that they are " evangelical Chris- 
tians;" and on being admitted, turn round and 
say that the Society must publish nothing more 
on Slavery, because it is not " calculated to re- 
ceive their approbation." When all this is 
done, in form, and the great " evangelical " 
brotherhood consent to recognize them as a 
part of their fraternity, then indeed will a bar 
be erected across the track of the Society, which, 
according to the Constitution, will effectually 
prohibit them from publishing anything upon 
that subject. But until this or some parallel 
exigency shall arise, that instrument does not 
prevent them from discussing, in a fraternal and 
Christian spirit, those moral duties which grow 
out of the existence of Slavery, as well as those 
moral evils and vices which it is known to 
promote. 

17 



130 Fugitives. 

III. "A Massachusetts Clergyman" affirms 
that "Dr. Wayland's argument, boldly carried 
out to its honest result, would lead to the con- 
clusion that the Constitution of the Society, 
even according to his own interpretation of it, 
is essentially sinful ; that the formation of the 
Society, with such a Constitution, was a sin; 
that its continuance and activity have been a 
continuance in sin; and that our first and only 
duty concerning it is, to terminate its existence." 

This inference from Dr. Wayland's premises 
is so utterly preposterous, that it would seem 
like a work of supererogation to attempt to 
refute it. But as it has been made apparently 
with much assurance, it shall be seriously con- 
sidered. And there are two or three modes of 
reasoning which meet it successfully. 

One is, to judge whether the Society origi- 
nated in sin and continues in sin, by examin- 
ing its fruits. "A corrupt tree cannot bring 
forth good fruit." When, then, we remember 
the eminent Christian character of its found- 
ers; the spirit of earnest prayer which attended 
its organization ; the sublime disinterestedness 
which adjusted all the details of the plan; the 
countless, the inconceivable blessings it has con- 
ferred on the country and the world, in the 
salvation of multitudes of souls, and in the 



American Tract Society and Slavery. 131 

spiritual edification of multitudes more; is it pos- 
sible that any intelligent and fair-minded man 
can pretend that it was "altogether born in sin," 
because it restricted itself to the publication 
of such portions of divine truth as are "calcu- 
lated to receive the approbation of all evangeli- 
cal Christians *? " No man can derive such a 
conclusion from the premises, till his desire to 
carry a point has got the better of his judgment. 
But there is another method of meeting the 
inference. By universal admission, the Tract 
Society was formed to promote the great cause 
of evangelical morality. That cause can be 
effectually subserved, if the Society never pub- 
lishes a syllable on infant baptism, or the mode 
of baptism, or falling from grace, or the parity 
of the ministry. But it cannot be faithfully 
sustained if it holds its peace when Slavery, 
which Wesley pronounced to be the " sum of 
all villainies," and which made Jefferson, him- 
self a slaveholder, "tremble for his country" 
when he remembered that "God is just," — is 
connived at by its publications. If it abstain 
from condemning, in a temperate and Christian 
spirit, a system so prolific of immoralities, how 
can it be faithful to the best interests of man, 
and the honor of Christ ? The moral goodness 
of the Society can therefore be demonstrably 



1 32 Fugitives. 

shown while it publishes Tracts on Slavery, but 
refrains from discussing those comparatively un- 
important points, on which " evangelical Chris- 
tians " happen to differ. 

The absurdity of the inference can be shown 
in another form. If the Society was "shapen in 
iniquity," because it does not publish on all sub- 
jects where " evangelical Christians " differ, then 
the Church and the pulpit are also founded in sin; 
for the very best of the evangelical denomina- 
tions cannot be said, without presumption, to 
hold and preach the truth of God in its absolute 
perfectness. If the conclusion is valid against 
the Tract Society, it is equally valid against the 
purest church and the most orthodox pulpit in 
Christendom. If, for the reason given, the " ex- 
istence " of the Society should be " terminated," 
for the same reason the Church and the pulpit 
ought to be overthrown. An argument which 
proves too much, proves nothing. Dr. Way- 
land's views, therefore, are not logically exposed 
to the inference for which " A Massachusetts 
Clergyman " seeks to make them responsible. 

IV. "A Massachusetts Clergyman" takes es- 
pecial offence at the position of Dr. Wayland, 
that the Society is under a moral obligation to 
publish Tracts on Slavery. When Dr. Way- 
land asks, " Have we any right to withhold any 



American fyact Society and Slavery, 133 

part of divine truth, because men are unwilling 
to receive it *? " he evidently means by " we," 
himself and his associates as members of the 
Tract Society, or, more strictly speaking, the 
Tract Society itself. The consistency of his 
argument requires this construction. All there- 
fore which " A Massachusetts Clergyman " says 
about " we," as meaning the Christian public 
and not the Tract Society, is mere surplusage. 
Dr. Wayland's avowed position is, that the 
Society is morally bound to publish Tracts on 
Slavery, " written in the spirit of Christian 
love." Against this position " A Massachusetts 
Clergyman " arrays a formidable host of objec- 
tions, so far as numbers are concerned, and the 
list, I apprehend, might be largely increased. 
He holds that the Society is not bound to do it 
for these reasons : that " every Free State is 
bearing testimony against Slavery continually ; " 
that our " laws " condemn it ; that most of the 
"religious denominations" in the land have con- 
demned it ; that " good men " at the South do 
not " desire " the Society to speak out on that 
subject; that it would be an "intolerable em- 
barrassment" to them; that it would "annihi- 
late their usefulness ; " that it would " enable 
wicked men and interested politicians to raise a 
louder outcry;" that such Tracts will not be 



134 Fugitives. 

" read " at the South ; that it would give the 
people there some ground for saying that the 
Society has "gone over to the Abolitionists;" 
and that it fraternizes with Garrison and radi- 
cals of his stripe, who, they conjecture, " en- 
couraged Nat Turner to get up the Southamp- 
ton Insurrection in 1831." 

Singularly enough, however, for the force of 
his argument, he concedes that all these objec- 
tions of the South would be "grossly unjust." 
If they are "grossly unjust," it is no compliment 
to the intelligence and candor of the South to 
entertain them, or to the moral nerve of the 
Tract Society to be intimidated by them. 

But admit the worst. Admit that this terri- 
ble avalanche of evils will descend upon the 
country if the Society publishes on the subject 
of Slavery, how does that affect the question of 
its duty ? I know full well that times, and sea- 
sons, and circumstances, and probable results are 
oftentimes to be considered in determining ques- 
tions of duty, where the revealed will of God has 
not already settled the point. But where it has, 
expediency has no place. The doctrine of " A 
Massachusetts Clergyman " is, that it is not ex- 
pedient, in the present state of feeling at the 
South, for the Society to publish anything on 
Slavery. This casuistry might be good, if Jesus 



American 'Tract Society and Slavery. ] 35 

Christ had not commanded us to " go into all 
the world and preach the Gospel to every crea- 
ture." I am not aware that the Tract Society 
is excepted in the terms of the apostolic commis- 
sion. Nor can expediency be allowed to come 
in here, and exonerate it from obligation to dis- 
charge its duty fully and faithfully in the pre- 
mises, agreeably to the spirit of its Constitution, 
as interpreted by every contemporary and his- 
torical light. The command to publish the 
Gospel has no limitation. It must, of course, 
be proclaimed to " Greek and Jew, Barbarian, 
Scythian, bond and free." Whether they will 
"hear" it, is not the question. Whether even 
"good men," and "evangelical Christians," at 
the South, however distinguished " by the holy 
beauty of their lives," will hear it, is not the 
question. Whether it will " embarrass " them, 
" or annihilate their influence," or make " inter- 
ested politicians " more blatant, or identify the 
Society with the "Abolitionists," is not the ques- 
tion. Expediency cannot override the revealed 
will of God in the case. Abstinence from duty 
will never cure the evil. Slavery, if let alone, 
will perish in Charleston, about the time that 
caste, if let alone, will perish in Benares. Fide- 
lity to God and man is the only way to destroy 
it. The question which the Tract Society is 



1 36 Fugitives. 

called upon to decide is not a new one. It was 
settled long ago by Micaiah and Nathan, by 
Peter and John, by Luther and Knox, and by 
a host of martyrs and confessors, who thought 
that they "ought to obey God rather than men." 
But has it come to this, that, in this most en- 
lightened age of the world, and in this land 
where the spirit of the Puritans, the Covenant- 
ers, and the Huguenots still lingers, expediency 
must set aside the positive requirement of 
Heaven ? Has it come to this, that the ab- 
normal and barbarous institution of Slavery, so 
out of all sympathy with the spirit of the age, 
must prevent the American Tract Society from 
exposing those " moral evils and vices which it 
is known to promote ? " And, finally, has it 
come to this, that the encroachments of the 
slave-power upon our civil and political rights, 
must be allowed to stalk, pari passu, over all 
the comities of ecclesiastical intercourse between 
the North and the South ; and into the Ameri- 
can Bible Society, and demand that it expunge 
those headings to the chapters of the Bible 
which denounce Slavery, though they have 
been consecrated for centuries in the hallowed 
associations of Christians of every name ; and 
now into the American Tract Society, and re- 
quire, on pain of the secession of all the " evan- 



American Tract Society and Slavery. 137 

gelical Christians " in the Southern States, that 
it seal its lips in eternal silence over wrongs at 
which humanity and Christianity alike stand 
aghast 4 ? Whatever may be the opinion of a 
few " evangelical Christians " and clergymen at 
the North, who are so extremely conservative 
as to be unable to perceive the obvious intent 
of the Constitution of the Tract Society, it is 
hoped that the Publishing Committee will yet 
interpret that document as the Society itself has 
done, and govern themselves accordingly. If, 
unhappily, they refuse to do so, "enlargement 
and deliverance " will unquestionably " arise " 
from some other source. 1 

1 The prediction, if such it may be called, in the closing sen- 
tence, has since been fulfilled. The Publishing Committee of the 
Society in New York did persist in misinterpreting their Consti- 
tution and in refusing to publish tracts on slavery, and as a con- 
sequence, the American Tract Society at Boston dissolved its 
connection with the other, resumed its original status as an inde- 
pendent institution, and publishes tracts upon slavery as well as 
other sins. This fact, together with the outbreak of the Southern 
rebellion for the spread and perpetuation of slavery, have compelled 
the Society at New York to act more in harmony with the intent 
of its Constitution; and the institution of slavery, which has long 
been a disturbing force in our religious as well as political concerns, 
will probably be overthrown by the present war. 

April, 1864. 



18 



ORIGINAL SIN. 

WHAT is the meaning of Eph. ii. 3 *? — 
Kat rj/xcv TCKva <j>vcr€i opyrjs, ws /cat ol Aowrot, — 

And were by nature the children of wrath, even 
as others. 

The terms Wm opy^s* translated in the English 
version, "children of wrath," by common con- 
sent, mean that the Christians at Ephesus, to 
whom this Epistle was addressed, possessed, 
before their conversion, a moral character which 
was deserving of the wrath of God, or of the 
punishment which is due to sin. o>s Kat ol XolttoI 
mean, according to Bloomfield and other author- 
ities, not only others, but all others, i. e., the 
rest of mankind. The degree of depravity in 
the individual then is entire, the extent of it in 
the species universal. Thus far all is plain. But 
what is the meaning of <£vo-«? Though this 
word was understood by nearly all commenta- 
tors, from Augustine down through fourteen or 
fifteen centuries, to affirm that the nature itself 
of all men is corrupt or depraved, yet it is one 
of the loci vexatissimi of some of the modern 
critics. Pelagius, a British monk of the fifth 



Original Sin. 139 

century, was the first writer of much distinction 
who denied that <£*W meant human nature itself, 
and that the Bible anywhere affirms the doctrine 
of what is called original sin. Pelagius has 
been followed by Dr. John Taylor, of Norwich, 
England, Dr. Nathaniel W. Taylor, of New 
Haven, Connecticut, Dr. Emmons, of Franklin, 
Professor Park, of Andover, and others of less 
note, and by the Unitarian divines generally. 
And yet these distinguished men are but excep- 
tions to the general belief of evangelical Chris- 
tendom. The doctrine of original sin, supposed 
to be taught by <£v<m and by many other pas- 
sages in the Bible, incorporated also into nearly 
all the Reformed Confessions of Faith, and held, 
almost without dissent, by the great divines of 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries both 
in Europe and in this country, is still the cur- 
rent belief of truly evangelical men the world 
over. But inasmuch as the question has been 
raised whether <£vo-€i does really teach that human 
nature itself 'is corrupt or depraved, it has become 
my duty, by the vote of this body, 1 to do what 
I can to throw light on the subject, though I 
am deeply sensible that it is in my power to do 
but little, after all the learning and acumen which 
have been expended upon it by the ablest men 

l The Suffolk North Association of Congregational Ministers. 



140 Fugitives. 

in the Christian Church. With all deference to 
the opinions of others, I must therefore endeavor 
to express my own, however humble they may 
be. 

The question before us is one and simple. It 
is whether by 4>v<ra the Apostle meant to teach 
us that the nature itself of men is in an abnor-. 
mal or morally wrong condition, or, in the lan- 
guage of technical theology, whether it is sinful. 
That he does affirm it to be so, appears to me 
quite clear for the reasons now to be presented. 
It is necessary, however, to premise, that this 
abnormal or sinful state is not a part of what 
philosophers have called the pura naturalia of 
humanity, such as the moral sense, the reason, 
the judgment, the memory. All these belonged 
to man previous to the fall, but his sinfulness, as 
the result of the fall, though innate, is not one 
of the original qualities of his nature. Original 
sin, therefore, is not original in the same sense 
that conscience, reason, judgment, taste are orig- 
inal, but original in the sense that it exists in 
every individual of the human race antecedently 
to moral action, is traceable through the long 
line of his ancestors back to the first sin of 
Adam, and is the direct, inevitable, and guilty 
consequence of that sin. How all this consists 
with the goodness of God and the free moral 



Original Sin. 141 

agency of men, has, properly speaking, no con- 
nection at all with the inquiry before us. That 
inquiry has respect simply to a matter of fact 
which should not be embarrassed by any collat- 
eral questions, and if theologians would be con- 
tent to leave it just where the Bible leaves it, 
among the " secret things that belong unto the 
Lord our God," and which are " too high for 
us," it would seem that the Bible would be more 
correctly interpreted, and unity of opinion might 
be hoped for. 

That the <f>v(n<s itself is depraved, this passage 
teaches, 

I. By the character with which it is contrasted 
in the context. It is contrasted with that into 
which the Ephesian churches were brought by 
grace. The antithesis is not between what they 
became by grace and what they were by educa- 
tion or habit; nor between what they became 
by grace and what they had been by yielding 
to the power of their " lower propensities " ; but 
between their natural state and their state by 
the renewing mercy of God. And the antithesis 
would be neither pertinent nor forceful unless 
their real original character was intended to be 
set forth, as the thing to be contrasted with their 
state by conversion. It is making a false issue 
with the Apostle, as Pelagius, Dr. Taylor of 



142 Fugitives. 

New Haven, and others have done, by inter- 
preting covens as something which is different 
from, or subsequent to, their original character. 
This view is confirmed by the best authorities. 
Dr. Bloomfield, one of the most intelligent and 
candid critics, says that " <£vo-ei here has been tor- 
tured by many learned commentators to yield 
some such sense as shall exclude the doctrine 
of the natural corruption of the human heart, 
(namely, either custom or acquired habit,) yet 
in vain, for in all the passages cited the sense 
natural disposition always peeps forth." And he 
further says that his " knowledge of the classical 
writers " enables him to confirm the sagacious 
remark of Dr. Scott, " that the word was never 
used of any other customs than such as resulted 
from innate propensities." 

This view of the subject is accredited by the 
deepest experience of Christians. When they 
look into their hearts, they feel that they are 
sinners, and they feel this without any regard to 
their actions or emotions. They habitually feel 
that before all action they are sinners, and before 
all emotion they are sinners. This is their com- 
mon consciousness. A thorough examination 
of themselves makes them feel that their very 
natures are abnormal, wrong, sinful, — that the 
trouble lies deeper than all action, — that it is 



Original Sin. 143 

a state of sin. Our own consciousness, then, cor- 
rectly interprets the passage before us. 

II. The different meanings of <£vW in the Bible 
show how it is to be understood in this passage. 
It is used in the following senses. 

1. In the sense of natural birth. 

Cral. 11. 1 C. 'H/ms c/mrei 'lovBaioL, /cat ovk i£ Wvuiv 

afxaprwXoL " We were Jews by nature," that is, 
we were born Jews. Here it is used, as in the 
text under consideration, to denote what the 
Jews were by birth. 

2. It is used in the sense of natural light. 

R.Om. il. 14* "Orav yap eOvrj tol firj vo/xov l^ovra, cavern 

tol tov vo/xov TTOLrj. "For when the Gentiles who 
have not the law do by nature the things con- 
tained in the law," that is, the Gentiles have 
sufficient natural light to do many things which 
are prescribed by the written law. 

3. Another meaning of c/nW is custom. 

1 Oor. XI. 14» *H ovSc avTr] r) c/>wi? SiSacrxei vjxas, otl 
avrjp pxv lav KOfxa, drt/u'a currw iart ; M Doth UOt even 

nature " or custom " teach you that if a man hath 
long hair, it is a shame unto him ? " But even 
here, c/>vW seems to insist on being understood 
nature quite as much as custom, for as President 
Edwards well says of this text, it is quite as 
much a dictate of nature as of custom that a 
man should not wear " long hair " like the other 
sex. 



144 Fugitives. 

4. Another sense in which <£tW is used in 
the New Testament is that of kinds or species. 

James iii. 7. ilao-a yap cf>v<TL<s Orjpidiv, etc. " For 
every kind " or species " of beasts is tamed or hath 
been tamed of mankind." That <£wei in the pas- 
sage on which this article is founded cannot be 
used in this sense is quite evident, because the 
Apostle was not discussing the different species 
or races of men, but the original character of all 
men. It must therefore be understood as teach- 
ing us what is the original moral character of 
the entire race. 

III. Parallel passages corroborate this interpre- 
tation. " Behold," says David, " I was shapen 
in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive 
me." It was not the sin of his mother which 
awoke the hot anguish of the 51st Psalm, as 
some of the opponents of the doctrine of orig- 
inal sin have alleged in order to get rid of that 
vital truth, but it was his own sin. "Against 
thee, thee only, have I sinned and have done this 
evil in thy sight." There is something in Dr. 
Watts's versification of this Psalm which meets 
the profbundest depths of Christian feeling in 
every pious heart, and it must therefore be the 
true interpretation : — 

Lord, I am vile, conceived in sin, 
And born unholy and unclean ; 



Original Sin. 145 

Sprung from the man whose guilty fall 
Corrupts the race and taints us all. 

Soon as we draw our infant breath 
The seeds of sin grow up for death ; 
Thy law demands a perfect heart, 
But we 're defiled in every part. 

Behold I fall before Thy face, 

My only refuge is Thy grace ; 

No outward forms can make me clean, 

The leprosy lies deep within, 1 

The oft-quoted exclamations of Job, "Who 
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? " 
" What is man that he should be clean ? And 
he that is born of woman that he should be 
righteous ? " — the declaration of God by Isaiah, 
" Thou was called a transgressor from the womb," 
— the circumstantial description of the hideous 
character of both the Jews and the Gentiles in 
the first three chapters of the Epistle to the Ro- 
mans, to say nothing of many other passages, 
do, I think, prove either the original as well as 
the desperate sinfulness of our race, or that the 
Bible was made to mislead men. Plain com- 
mon sense has always understood these texts to 
teach the native sinfulness of men, — human 

1 This Psalm has been excluded from the Church Psalmody and 
altered in the Sabbath Hymn Book, on the ground, forsooth, that it 
is not lyrical ! Is it not, rather, because the doctrine is offensive ? 

'9 



146 Fugitives. 

m 

philosophy has to be called in to make them 
teach anything else. 

IV. The profoundest analysis of the text, in 
its metaphysical aspect, demonstrates the original 
corruption of human nature. Dr. Emmons said, 
" Original sin is a lie ; " and Dr. Taylor, in his 
celebrated contest with Dr. Tyler on this sub- 
ject, hard pressed by his antagonist and follow- 
ing the lead of Emmons, endeavored to escape 
from the dilemma in which he was involved by 
setting up this distinction, that our nature itself is 
not depraved, but that we are depraved by na- 
ture. He stoutly argued that this is all that 
this text affirms, and that therefore the doctrine 
of original sin is not taught here. It is hardly 
a euphemism to say that any statement of that 
great man is a mere quibble, and yet I know of 
no more proper term to designate the real fact 
in this case. On the one hand, he rejected the 
doctrine of original sin, and yet on the other, 
was unwilling to be crowded over upon the 
Unitarian ground, namely, that all our sinful- 
ness is the result of bad example. He therefore 
set up the absurd distinction, that our nature is 
not sinful, but that we are sinful by nature. 
Now I ask any man, however acute and pen- 
etrating he may be, to apply his mind to the 
point, and see if he can discover any real differ- 



Original Sin. 147 

ence between the two statements. We can see 
a difference between being sinful by nature in 
distinction from being made sinful by example 
or custom. We can see a difference between 
having a sinful nature, and coming into the 
world with a nature which has no moral char- 
acter, and which, by some undescribed and in- 
conceivable process, becomes sinful afterwards ; 
but in that case we should not be sinful by na- 
ture. These distinctions are familiar to all per- 
sons of reflection ; but what is the difference 
between having a sinful nature and being sinful 
by nature ? Let every man expend upon it his 
most concentrated attention; let him press on to 
the very farthest " limits of religious thought ; " 
and will he not find, in the last analysis of 
which the human mind is capable, that they 
resolve themselves into one and the same thing*? 
We turn a telescope upon the nebulse of the 
heavens, and we resolve every square inch of 
the view into hundreds of separate stars, but 
our mental telescopes, directed ever so penetra- 
tingly upon the question now before us, can 
discover no new truth, but simply a parallax of 
the old one. The question, under such an in- 
tense scrutiny, refuses to be a question. The 
proposition insists that it is no question at all ; 
and we come back from our investigations with 



148 Fugitives. 

the conviction, that it is a mere strife of words, 
— logomachy only. We are therefore, I think, 
compelled to admit that if we are sinful by 
nature, the nature itself is sinful. 

All this is made plain by a very familiar illus- 
tration. A lion is a carnivorous animal ; and 
we say his nature is carnivorous, he is carnivor- 
ous by nature, and he is naturally carnivorous; 
and we use all these phrases convertibly, — 
meaning by them one and the same thing. And 
all these phrases are used not only popularly, 
but philosophically as well. If we are asked 
to define what that nature /}, we can only say, 
" we do not know." Neither scalpel nor micro- 
scope can detect it. It was not his physical 
organism which made him carnivorous, but his 
nature made his organism. So, too, human beings 
have a sinful nature, they are sinful by nature, 
and they are naturally sinful; and there is no 
difference at all in the import of these phraseol- 
ogies. They mean one and the same thing; 
and that theory is hard pressed which seeks to 
find in them any difference of meaning. The 
moral nature of men, then, is sinful, as well as 
all the moral acts and the moral neglects 
" which proceed from it." 

According to the theory of Emmons, Taylor, 
Park, and their followers, that our nature is not 



Original Sin. 149 

sinful, there is no logical connection between 
the first sin of the child, and anything else there 
is within him ; for on that theory our connec- 
tion with Adam is so attenuated into nothing, 
that there is an unabridged chasm between what 
Adam did, and what the child does. Dr. Tay- 
lor saw the chasm, and attempted to span it by 
a pontoon bridge, — if the incongruity of a hy- 
drographic figure may be pardoned, — of biases, 
tendencies, proclivities, and I know not what 
other metaphysical planks, which are neither 
holy nor sinful. But pontoon bridges, after all, 
are but a poor substitute for granite, and are 
never used except in cases of special emergency. 
Granite is the true material, and that solid and 
indestructible masonry orthodox men find in 
the doctrine of original sin. Emmons saw the 
chasm, and with characteristic firmness of nerve, 
met the issue squarely by affirming that " God is 
the author of sin," and that "He operates di- 
rectly on the hearts of children when they first 
become moral agents " to induce them to sin. 1 
Bold and revolting, not to say blasphemous, as 
this averment is, it is nevertheless the only 
ground which can be consistently and logically 
taken by all men who deny the doctrine of orig- 
inal sin. Emmons was also consistent with 

1 Emmons' 's Works > edition 1842, Vol. IV. p. 508. 



150 Fugitives 

himself in holding the annihilation of infants 
because they have no moral character, and all 
New School men, to be consistent, should hold 
that doctrine too. But to carry his consistency 
fully out, Emmons should also have discarded 
the rite of infant baptism ; for why baptize an 
infant who has no moral character and is to be 
annihilated? Dr. Emmons was the schoolman 
of the nineteenth century, and about the only 
specimen of that mediaeval fossil which this 
century has produced. Indissolubly wedded to 
his own philosophy about " exercises," feeling 
more than a paternal fondness for his own theo- 
ries, quick, sharp, and curt in the manner of ex- 
pressing his thoughts, pragmatical and decided 
in his notions, reasoning with a vast appearance 
of logic, but very often with no logic at all, — 
he was not the man to shrink from facing any 
of the consequences of his system ; and hence, 
while claiming to be a Calvinist of the " straitest 
sect," he cut clean and clear through the the- 
ology of Calvin, of the Westminster Divines, of 
Edwards, and of Smalley his theological in- 
structor, and was not afraid of statements which 
have appalled the sensibilities of all other men. 
He was the real founder of the New School 
theology, but as that theology repudiated the 
direct divine causation of evil, he, in turn, just 



Original Sin. 151 

before he died, repudiated the New Haven sys- 
tem. He saw that there is no standing place 
for his theory, that there is no such thing as orig- 
inal sin and that all sin consists in " exercises," 
unless it is admitted that God produces, by a 
direct act of his power, the first sinful emotion 
in every human heart. The New School men, 
less consistent than himself, rejected his dogma 
that " God is the author of sin," though they 
held to the " exercises," and before he went into 
his grave he rejected them. 1 

It seemed to be necessary to present this 
bird's-eye view of this history of opinions in 
New England for the last thirty years, inasmuch 
as they have all grown out of the subject before 
us, regarded in its metaphysical aspects and rela- 
tions. The wide divergence of all New School 
men from the theology of Calvin and Edwards, 
and from all the leading divines of the seven- 

1 The late Dr. Woods, of Andover, in his " Theology of the 
Puritans," distinctly says, that the peculiar views of Hopkins, Em- 
mons, and Taylor do not belong to New England Theology, prop- 
erly so called, according to the admissions of those writers them- 
selves. Some of their followers, however, by a perversion of the 
well-known historical facts in the case, are now laboring to con- 
vince the world that their peculiar and erroneous views are the real 
theology of New England, and by a sort of clerical coup cT etat y 
they are seeking to get possession of all the high places of influ- 
ence, and thus diffuse sentiments with which New England from 
the beginning has had no sympathy. 



) 52 Fugitives. 

teenth and eighteenth centuries, shows that they 
are at war with the consensus of the churches, 
and, therefore, at war with the Bible ; for it can- 
not be supposed that the churches have all been 
wrong upon this important subject, until the 
present generation came upon the stage. The 
Westminster Confession and Catechism are still 
the recognized standard of orthodoxy among 
all our ecclesiastical bodies, but New School men 
receive them only for " substance of doctrine," 
with so many mental reservations and so many 
new interpretations of their terms, that it really 
amounts to no acceptance of them all. The con- 
sensus of evangelical Christendom, however, will 
at last prevail ; and the doctrine of Original 
Sin, now so flatly denied by some, or so gingerly 
accepted by others, will be heartily embraced 
and permanently held by the churches. This 
brief history of the doctrine is important, be- 
cause a true history of the doctrine is a history 
of the true doctrine. 

V. The truth that human nature itself is cor- 
rupt, is confirmed by the general voice of the 
churches, as expressed in their symbols. Truth, I 
know, cannot always be determined by majori- 
ties, and yet the human mind is so constituted 
that it cannot but be affected by this considera- 
tion. " In a multitude of counsellors there is 



Original Sin. 153 

safety." Perhaps the doctrine of Original Sin 
cannot abide the famous test of truth, laid down 
by Vincent of Lirens, "Quod ubique, quod sem- 
per, quod ab omnibus creditum est ;" — it must have 
been believed everywhere, always, and by all, — and 
there are very few truths indeed which can ; for 
there have always been minds distorted and 
prejudiced enough to disbelieve truths which are 
in themselves intuitive to the most common 
understandings. But an immense majority of 
evangelical and truly pious men have always 
held this doctrine and hold it now, notwith- 
standing all the modern objections, and with 
greater tenacity, if possible, than ever. The 
numerous objections to the doctrine of Original 
Sin, often inconsistent with each other and with 
themselves, and which are therefore shown to 
be unsound ; the insufficiency of all other theo- 
ries to account for the deep and universal 
sinfulness of our race ; and the superficial views 
of Atonement and Regeneration which have 
grown out of them all, — have served to con- 
vince the most candid and reflecting men that 
the commonly received doctrine must be the 
true one. Time would fail to quote all the 
Confessions of Faith, which in the various Chris- 
tian ages have solemnly affirmed this cardinal 
article of Christianity ; the leading ones only 



1 54 Fugitives. 

can be referred to. The Synod of Dort held 
that "all men become depraved through the 
propagation of a sinful nature." The Confession 
of Helvetia says, — " We take sin to be that 
natural corruption of man which is derived from 
our first parents unto us all." The Confession 
of Bohemia or the Waldenses, says of original 
sin, — "It is engendered in us and is hereditary." 
The French Confession says of man, — "His na- 
ture is become altogether denied." The Church 
of England, in the Thirty-nine Articles, affirms 
that "original sin is the fault and corruption of the 
nature of every man that is naturally engendered 
of the offspring of Adam." The Augsburg Con- 
fession says,— "The very corruption of man's na- 
ture is derived from Adam." The Westminster 
Assembly declare that " a corrupted nature was 
conveyed from our first parents to all their pos- 
terity. From this original corruption, whereby 
we are all utterly indisposed, disabled, and made 
opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all 
evil, do proceed all actual transgressions." The 
Synod at Cambridge and the Synod at Say- 
book adopted and reaffirmed, in ipsissimis ver- 
bis, the doctrine of the Westminster Divines. 

And suppose, now, that a large and highly re- 
spectable convention of men, who are dissatisfied 
with this doctrine, should be called, and they 



Original Sin. 155 

should formally reject it, and insert in their new 
Confession the theory of Dr. Emmons, or Dr. 
Taylor, or Dr. Park, it would be no more ac- 
cepted as any authority by the evangelical 
world than Sawyer's Translation of the Bible. 
So far then as names have or ought to have 
any influence in deciding a question of this 
kind, the believers in the doctrine of Original 
Sin certainly have the benefit of the argument. 

The early fathers of New England, in their 
hatred of prelatic and Popish authority, threw 
away altogether the argument from " analogy of 
faith." They thought it savored too much of 
Rome. But there is real weight and authority 
in the argument, and the friends of truth should 
use it. What the Church has always believed, 
is certainly much more likely to be true than 
what she has always rejected. The very fact 
that pious and intelligent men in all the Chris- 
tian centuries have believed any doctrine, be it 
what it may, is presumptive evidence that it is 
a true one. If it firmly holds its place in the 
creed of Christendom, after all the discussions 
through which she has passed, after all her dili- 
gent comparison of views, and her ceaseless ex- 
ertions to eliminate the last vestige of error from 
her creed, it must certainly be regarded as one of 
the strongest proofs of its soundness. The article 



156 Fugitives. 

of Original Sin has stood this test for eighteen 
hundred years, and it ought now, in all reason, 
to be accepted by all men and especially by 
those who claim to be orthodox, as one of the 
cardinal truths of the Bible, and to be mooted 
no more. 

VI. The comparative practical influence of 
these two theories of the origin of sin clearly 
shows which is scriptural. And here the ap- 
peal must be made to common observation and 
common fame. Which, then, according to the 
popular belief, produces the most thorough re- 
vivals of religion, the greatest number of con- 
versions, and the soundest type of piety *? Sub- 
mitted to this test, it appears to me that no 
intelligent and reasonable man can doubt for a 
moment. Why is it that the popular impres- 
sion is so strong, that the great doctrines of grace 
are not preached so faithfully now as they were 
in the days of Bellamy and Edwards, of Griffin 
and Payson, of Nettleton and Lyman Beecher, 
before he became a New School man. That 
there has been a great and most lamentable 
change in New England in the tone and effec- 
tiveness of the pulpit, ever since the rise of the 
New Haven controversy, is a matter of the 
widest notoriety, and of daily grief to thousands 
in the churches. The younger clergy, never 



Original Sin. 157 

having heard the preaching or mingled in the 
great revivals which prevailed forty or fifty 
years ago, cannot have observed the change, but 
it is as patent to those who lived before and 
since the transition, as the sun in mid-heaven. 
It can no more be mistaken than the most self- 
evident truth. 

How, then, is this deplorable change to be 
accounted for 4 ? It cannot be accounted for on 
any other principle, than that the great doctrines 
of the Reformation, of which Original Sin is the 
chief corner-stone, and which wrought with such 
wondrous power in Germany, in Scotland, and 
in New England for the first two hundred years 
of her history, have been more or less modified, 
or diluted, or neglected, or shorn of their power 
by a false philosophy. Under much of modern 
preaching, and that, too, which claims to be 
evangelical, the pastor never meets with a case, 
in all his experience, like that of Samuel J. 
Mills, who for two long years violently quar- 
relled with the sovereignty of God in electing 
some to eternal life, and who, in the unspeak- 
able agonies of a " wounded spirit," often ex- 
claimed, " O that I had never been born ! For 
two years I have been sorry that God ever 
made me ! " Many pastors would be quite 
startled from their propriety to find such a case 



1 58 Fugitives. 

in their parishes. They would discountenance 
such agony as old-fashioned and unnecessary, and 
as not at all in harmony with the easy method 
by which, it is said, men can now be converted 
by a simple determination of their own wills. 
Such deep convictions of sin cannot be ex- 
pected where the total and original depravity 
of the heart is not enforced "day and night with 
tears." Nor do such overwhelming convictions 
occur even if the preacher says that the heart 
is totally depraved, but not naturally so, — that 
depravity does not supervene till sometime after 
birth, when moral agency is supposed to com- 
mence, — that no child is a sinner till he begins 
to act, — and that all sin consists in his actings 
and none of it in his nature. This easy view 
of sin prepares the way for a repentance which 
is equally easy; and hence the sinner is often 
told that he can at any time repent, as easily as he 
can turn over his hand, or walk into another 
room. No man ever was or ever can be very 
deeply alarmed by such preaching. He will be 
very quiet so long he feels that the power is 
pretty much in his own hands, and that he is 
not utterly dependent on the sovereign grace of 
God for a new heart. And here is the vital 
point where the new theology fails. It fails, be- 
cause sin is so represented that it creates little 



Original Sin. 159 

alarm. It fails in the very point, which its 
friends conceive to be its strongest point. Paul 
" by the commandment " made " sin appear ex- 
ceeding sinful" Professor Park says, "it is a 
disturbance of the balance of the moral sensibil- 
ities." Which of these statements is the most 
likely to awaken, convict, and convert? New 
School men profess to believe in the " lowest 
deep " of human depravity, but Old School men 
see a much " lower deep," which, if opened to 
the sinner's view by the preacher and the Holy 
Spirit, will make him shudder and cry for mercy 
as if he stood at the bar of judgment. New 
School men profess to think that their superfi- 
cial view of sin is the most awakening and 
effective, but the results of that system prove 
that there was never a more egregious mistake. 1 

l Dr. Woods, in his Theology of the Puritans, says that there 
are some men who claim to be Calvinistic who still hold, that 
" if sinners were free from a false philosophy, and would only put 
forth their power as moral agents, they might bring themselves 
at once to choose a life of religion, and might obtain a good hope, 
without such protracted and painful conflicts ; and further, that 
if the obligations of religion, and man's ability to fulfil them, 
should be rightly preached, such long and distressing conviction of 
sin would be prevented, and multitudes be converted in a day ; and 
finally, that if ministers would pass over the cutting doctrines of 
man's native depravity, election, and sovereign divine influence, 
and would only impress upon the minds of sinners the free salvation 
offered to them, and their plenary power to accept it, there would 
be a new era of revivals." 



160 Fugitives. 

The frequency, the extent, and the overwhelm- 
ing power of the revivals which occurred before 
this new theory came into vogue, compared 
with the unfrequent and unsatisfactory character 
of most of the recent awakenings in New Eng- 
land, in the production of which there is such a 
large infusion of human agency, and such a 
slight recognition of the sovereign agency of* a 
Holy God, cannot, I think, but convince any 
candid observer which is the real theory of the 
Bible. This simple pregnant fact alone points 
out the true meaning of <£wa in the passage be- 
fore us, and it completes our evidence that the 
doctrine of Original Sin is really taught there. 

It is scarcely necessary to say, in conclusion, 
that all the various theories, which have been 
devised to account for the modus in which the 
sin of Adam makes its access upon his posterity, 
are simply the philosophies of men upon the 
subject. The Bible settles the question that 
Adam's sin, in some way or other, infects all his 
descendants. "By one man's disobedience many 
were made sinners." How this was done, — 
whether imputatively, or seminally, or corpo- 
rately, or representatively, or by a Divine con- 
stitution, or by the direct act of God, or by any 
other mode, — the Bible does not inform us. 
The fact is a matter of divine revelation, the 



Original Sin. 161 

mode is a matter of human conjecture. Those, 
who have speculated the most on the mode, 
know as little about it as any of us; and neither 
they nor we will ever be wiser upon it in the 
present world. Besides, it is no more difficult 
to explain the consistency of Original Sin with 
the justice of God and the freedom of man, 
upon the commonly received theory, than the 
existence of sin at all upon the recent theory. 
The hypothesis of Emmons, Taylor, and other 
New School men only removes the difficulty 
one step farther forward. That difficulty is the 
Gordian knot of theology, and their theory does 
not by any means untie it. 




EVANGELISTS. 

THE term "evangelists," in its common 
acceptation, is used in a very loose and 
indeterminate sense. Sometimes it designates 
a class of ministers of the gospel who assist 
pastors in conducting revivals of religion; at 
others it denotes what are called stated sup- 
plies; and then again it means missionaries, 
both foreign and domestic. It is highly impor- 
tant, as it regards correct conceptions of the 
nature and duties of this office, that the term 
be restored to its original meaning. The cen- 
tral idea of the Greek word €v'ayyeA«n-<H, translated 
evangelists in the New Testament, is proclaimers 
of the Evangel, or, in more familiar terms, preach- 
ers of the Gospel at large. Restricting, then, 
the meaning of the word to its original and true 
signification, it should not be used for stated 
supplies, for they occupy a given place, like 
pastors, and are not evangelists in any proper 
sense. They are, for the time being, pastors as 
well as preachers. And as it regards using the 



Evangelists. 1 63 

word in the sense of missionaries, it would pro- 
mote clearness of conception if that practice 
should also be discontinued. The word mis- 
sionaries, like stated supplies, is not, indeed, a 
scriptural term, but it is so acceptable to the 
taste of the Christian public, and is so univer- 
sally employed, that it has almost entirely dis- 
placed the word evangelists in all descriptions 
of the pioneer work of spreading the gospel, 
either at home or abroad. Besides, there is a 
substantial difference in the signification of these 
words, as they are now used. All missionaries 
are, indeed, evangelists, but all evangelists are 
not missionaries, for some of them are not em- 
ployed on missionary ground, but are co-work- 
ers with pastors at home. It would, therefore, 
greatly promote a more scientific classification 
of clerical duties, and facilitate a better under- 
standing of the whole subject, if, by common 
consent, the word evangelists could be used 
exclusively to describe the work of cooperating 
with pastors in promoting revivals of religion 
and the salvation of souls. This, we shall soon 
see, was originally the principal, though not ex- 
clusive employment of this order of the clergy. 
It was thought necessary to submit these pre- 
liminary views of the proper work of evangel- 
ists, as it will show precisely in what sense that 



164 Fugitives, 

term should now be used, and especially how it 
will be used in this article. The general sub- 
ject of evangelists, in this restricted sense, will 
now be considered. 

1. The office is a divine institution. The 
word " evangelist " occurs three times in the 
New Testament. It is first found in Acts xxi. 
8, where Paul and his company are said to have 
" entered into the house of Philip the evangel- 
ist, who was one of the seven " deacons. Here 
the office is incidentally mentioned, but its du- 
ties are not defined. In 2 Tim. iv. 5, Paul calls 
upon Timothy to "do the work of an evangel- 
ist," and " make full proof of his ministry," 
which clearly proves that, as he was not a set- 
tled pastor at Ephesus, he was to exercise his 
ministry there in the capacity of an evangelist, 
or itinerant preacher. Henry says that "the 
scope of the two Epistles to Timothy is to direct 
him how to discharge his office as an evangelist 
at Ephesus." But the precise nature of that 
office is much more clearly discriminated in the 
only other passage where the term occurs — 
Eph. iv. 11. Here we have a specific account 
of all the clerical offices which the Great Head 
of the church, on his ascension to heaven, thought 
it necessary to institute : " And He gave some, 
apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evan- 



Evangelists. 165 

gelists; and some, pastors and teachers." Ac- 
cording to the best interpreters, " apostles " were 
those whom Christ chose, first of all, as His 
immediate representatives here on earth, and 
endowed them with the most eminent spiritual 
gifts, with the power of working miracles, and 
with that special inspiration which enabled them 
to write all the books of the New Testament, 
except the Gospels of Mark and Luke, and the 
Acts of the Apostles. This office, though in a 
sense the highest and most important of all, was, 
in its nature, temporary, and, having fulfilled its 
purpose, soon passed away. " Prophets," the 
office next in order, were those extraordinary 
teachers of Christianity who were endowed with 
the gift of prophecy, or the ability to foretell 
future events, as well as of preaching the truth. 
The duties of prophets, or that which partic- 
ularly distinguished them, namely, the ability to 
foretell future events, having been fully dis- 
charged, and the object of their appointment 
being accomplished, that office also ceased. 

The office next in order, and, as some expos- 
itors think, the next in importance, was that of 
" evangelists." Professor Hackett, in his Notes 
on the Acts, says, " The title of evangelists ap- 
pears to have been given to those who had no 
stated pastoral charge, but travelled from place 



1 66 Fugitives. 

to place as they had opportunity." Barnes says, 
" The office was distinct from that of the pastor, 
the teacher, and the prophet, and was manifestly 
an office in which preaching was the main thing." 
Olshausen held that "evangelists are such teach- 
ers as, journeying about, labored for the wider 
extension of the gospel." Kuinoel affirms that 
" evangelists in the age of the apostles were not 
settled pastors of any Christian congregation, or 
resident at any stated place, but were itinerant 
presbyters." Bengel, in his Gnomon of the 
New Testament, says, "The evangelist was fit- 
ted for an office of the highest importance, by 
a gift superior to that of pastors and teachers." 
Dr. Scott says, " The office of evangelist, in 
primitive times, was in most respects similar to 
that of missionaries in subsequent times. They 
were preachers of the gospel, without full apos- 
tolical authority, and without any stated charge ; 
going among the heathen to found churches, or, 
visiting churches already formed, to 4 set in order 
the things that were wanting,' to supply the de- 
ficiencies or aid the labors of the stated pastors, 
and to stimulate them to greater earnestness in 
discharging their duties. When zeal for propa- 
gating the gospel subsided, this office fell into 
disuse ; but in one form or other the office of 
evangelist, or something of the same nature, 



Evangelists. 1 67 

must revive along with the work of evangel- 
izing the nations." And Dr. Scott even went 
so far as to say that evangelists were "superior 
in dignity to diocesan bishops." This is a most 
remarkable concession for an Episcopalian, inas- 
much as the clergy of that church have always 
been especially jealous of any encroachment 
upon the prerogatives of "mitred heads." Ac- 
cording, then, to his liberal averment, it was one 
of the main offices of evangelists to "supply 
the deficiencies" of pastors, to "aid their labors," 
and to " stimulate them to greater earnestness in 
discharging their duties." If all pastors were as 
prompt and as cordial in conceding to evangel- 
ists their proper vocation, these coordinate min- 
istries appointed by Christ for the salvation of 
men would work together with far greater har- 
mony and success, and a new impulse would be 
given to His kingdom in every land. 

According to the principal authorities already 
cited, it appears that, in primitive times, evan- 
gelists labored at home in connection with the 
apostles more than as missionaries in foreign 
countries. Among the earliest evangelists were 
such men as Timothy and Titus, Silvanus and 
Apollos. Timothy labored in Ephesus and 
Titus in Crete, where the apostles had already 
preached the gospel and planted churches. Sil- 



168 Fugitives. 

vanus and Apollos, so far as we know their his- 
tory, did the same. The apostles were the 
pioneers in the work, and the evangelists fol- 
lowed and built on their foundations. This 
gives us the true conception of the principal 
employment of evangelists in the earliest age 
of the church. There is not anything, then, 
in the nature and design of this office, which 
shows that it was to be temporary, but rather 
that it is to be as permanent as any other in the 
Christian church. As evangelists are, a fortiori^ 
preachers of the gospel, it cannot be proved that 
this office has passed away, as some have sup- 
posed, until it can be shown that the necessity 
for preaching the gospel has passed away. 

The other office, appointed by the Saviour 
at his ascension, is that of "pastors and teach- 
ers." These appear to be one and the same, as 
there is no disjunctive particle placed between 
them in the statement, as there is between all 
the other offices mentioned. "A distinction 
between pastors and teachers," says the learned 
and venerable Dr. Jenks, " was early attempted 
by the New England churches, but was not long 
maintained." 1 As the churches will always need 
" pastors and teachers," there is every reason to 
believe that that office is also permanent. 

l Comp. Com. in loc. Eph. iv. n. Cambridge Platform. 



Evangelists. 169 

From this analysis of the various offices in the 
Christian ministry which were appointed by its 
Divine Founder, it is evident that the office of 
evangelists, if not superior, is, at any rate, in no 
sense inferior, to that of pastors. The etymol- 
ogy of the terms teaches that the evangelist is 
rather the preacher, and the pastor the shepherd. 
The difference is one of gifts not of grade, of 
duties not of rank. A true construction would 
probably place them on a level in point of im- 
portance ; and as they are clearly coordinate 
offices, their incumbents should work together, 
with the utmost harmony, in executing the great 
commission with which they are charged. 

II. Can we discover any of the reasons which 
existed in the Divine Mind for the institution of 
this permanent office in the ministry? The 
inquiry is not irreverent. Science is doing the 
same thing every day, and is thereby adding 
confirmation to the statements of the Bible. 
These reasons must lie in the nature of the work 
to be done by evangelists, and in human nature itself 
Let us look somewhat deeply into the matter. 
A close observation will discover that all the 
agencies which God has established for the sal- 
vation of men, are grounded in the necessities of 
the case. Pastors are men of " like passions " 
with other men, and though presumed to be 



170 Fugitives. 

better than the average of Christians, they are 
by no means exempt from human frailties and 
infirmities. Such, too, are the laws of human 
action, that pastors, in the progress of life, usu- 
ally acquire some fixed habit of performing their 
official duties which may not be the most favor- 
able to their success. Indeed, it has come to 
be a very prevalent opinion, that most pastors — 
such is human infirmity — can count a much 
larger number of real converts in their earlier 
than in their later ministry. The reverse of 
this would probably be expected by a superficial 
observer. Without a thorough examination of 
the subject, it might be supposed, that an increase 
of years, which usually brings with it an increase 
of wisdom, would also bring an increase of suc- 
cess ; and that such an enlarged knowledge of 
divine truth and of the human heart would cer- 
tainly result in a great increase of conversions 
to Christ. But the facts in the case, as the his- 
tory of our churches attests, are quite otherwise. 
Strange as it may seem, the immaturity and zeal 
of youth are generally more successful than the 
wisdom and moderation of old age. There are, 
indeed, some pastors of such versatility of talent 
and such knowledge of the public taste, that 
they " keep up with the times," and are always 
young and modern in their style of preaching, 



Evangelists. 171 

and in all their habits. Through a pastorate of 
half a century, they maintain the fire of youth 
in the maturity of age. But such cases are com- 
paratively rare. The habits of most pastors, 
like those of other men, become inveterate with 
the lapse of time. They come to have, almost 
inevitably but not necessarily, a certain stereo- 
typed manner of praying, and reading, and 
preaching, and visiting, and performing all other 
clerical duties; and this routine partially fore- 
closes success. The congregation take on the 
monotony of the pastor, and long years often 
pass away without revivals of religion, or the 
conversion of many souls to Christ. A barris- 
ter, with this soporific sameness of manner, 
would be briefless, and such a statesman could 
not command "the applause of listening sen- 
ates," nor carry any great measure of public 
utility. 

In this state of things is it not morally certain, 
that incalculable good would result from the 
labors of a judicious evangelist, if he could be 
introduced by the hearty invitation, and enjoy 
the cordial cooperation of the pastor and the 
church ? With a deep conviction of his de- 
pendence on God for success, and without any 
undue excitement, he might and probably would 
break up, for the time at least, these formal hab- 



172 Fugitives. 

its of the pastor and the people, arrest the pub- 
lic attention, alarm the general conscience, and 
move scores and hundreds anxiously to ask, 
" Men and brethren, what shall we do ? " The 
pastor would be made a more effective preacher, 
the religious state of the church would be greatly 
improved, its numbers largely increased, and an- 
gels send up new hosannas that souls are saved, 
when there was a fearful probability that they 
would be lost. 

But there is another aspect of the subject 
which deserves serious consideration. Much is 
said nowadays upon the duty of laymen to be 
more active in the cause of Christ. There is, 
no doubt, a very large amount of lay influence 
that is quite inert and ineffective in this cause. 
The evil is great, and should be immediately 
removed. But while we concur most heartily 
in all these appeals to laymen to " come up to 
the help of the Lord against the mighty," and 
join our humble voice in invoking their supreme 
consecration to this work, we cannot forget that 
there are two sides to the subject. If we mis- 
take not, there is, perhaps, as large a proportion 
of pastors to whom a similar appeal might, with 
equal propriety, be addressed. If the lay ele- 
ment in the churches, as it is termed, needs to 
be summoned to more active duty, so does the 



Evangelists. 173 

clerical. Indeed, we hardly know which is the 
most delinquent in this matter, or which has a 
right to cast the first stone. 

But abstaining from all invidious comparisons, 
we believe it to be a truth, — and our cheeks man- 
tle with shame while we write it, — that there 
are pastors who are more interested in politics, 
or war, or slavery, or education, or some other 
side issue, than in the direct business of the min- 
istry — the rescuing of their hearers from " ever- 
lasting burnings." Some, 

" So warm on meaner themes, 
Are cold on this." 

The difference is visible in their prayers, in their 
preaching, and in their ordinary spirit out of the 
pulpit, and it is a matter of frequent conversa- 
tion and of profound solicitude among many of 
the best members of the churches. However 
great may be the deficiencies of laymen, there 
are some, we believe, who are far more zealous 
than their pastors for the salvation of sinners. 
If laymen, then, need to be put up to greater 
activity, there are some pastors who need it 
quite as much. 

Constitutional temperament, also, has great 
influence here. Some pastors are more phleg- 
matic than mercurial, apathetic than active, in- 
tellectual than emotional, philosophical than 



1 74 Fugitives. 

practical, formal than spiritual. Some, too, 
were not " born again " in revivals, and, almost 
of course, they are comparatively unacquainted 
with revivals, feel apparently but little interest 
in revivals, and do not seem to know how to 
work for or in revivals. It is also worthy of 
particular notice that those pastors who have 
these constitutional or moral imperfections, and 
who therefore specially need the aid of evangel- 
ists to supplement and give effect to their own 
labors, are usually the very men, of all others, 
who are the most unwilling that they should 
come into their parishes. What, then, are the 
prospects of their congregations without some 
foreign aid, which better understands and is bet- 
ter adapted to the work of calling sinners to 
repentance ? Must thousands perish without 
such help ? Can the churches afford to do with- 
out it ? Can such pastors do without it ? If 
each of the fourteen hundred Congregational 
pastors in New England should daily feel that 
intense solicitude for the salvation of his parish- 
ioners which made the godly Rutherford exclaim 
at midnight, — 

" O, if one soul from Anworth 
Meet me at God's right hand, 
My heaven will be fwo heavens 
In ImmanuePs land," — 



Evangelists. 175 

there would be little objection to evangelists. 
And if they all should, like Paul at Ephesus, 
" by the space of three years cease not to warn 
every one night and day with tears," there would 
perhaps be less necessity, but an earnest demand 
for this kind of help. The annual returns made 
to the General Associations and Conferences of 
New England show that the rate of increase in 
the membership of our churches is alarmingly 
small, and some of them show the still more 
astounding fact that the rate is one of decrease. 
Ought not these facts to startle the pastors and 
churches from their slumbers, and incite them 
to new activity, to more earnest prayer, and to 
the immediate adoption of every authorized 
agency for the salvation of the people % 

Now, is not the wisdom of the Great Head 
of the church not only discernible but most con- 
spicuous, in the appointment of such an order 
of men to impart a new impulse and give fresh 
success to the labors of the local ministry ? and 
is not the necessity of evangelists based in the 
very infirmities of human nature itself? If this 
be so, the institution of this office was by no 
means a superfluous arrangement which might 
just as well have been dispensed with, but an 
imperative necessity to the best interests of Zion. 
The work which Timothy performed at Eph- 



1 76 Fugitives. 

esus, and Titus in Crete, needs to be performed 
everywhere. If the apostles needed the aid 
of evangelists, do not pastors need it as 
much ? 

It is also worthy of special notice that they 
are eminently adapted to the genius of our in- 
stitutions. In no country have they been more 
successful. Several have arisen in New England 
and in the Middle and Western States, who, 
by their thorough knowlege of men, their fervid 
zeal, and their earnest enforcement of the truth, 
have roused many a congregation which the 
pastor could not move, and met the case of 
many a procrastinating sinner whom the pastor 
could not bring to the great decision. And 
several others, of less judgment and discretion, 
after making all due allowance for their imper- 
fections, it must be conceded, have instrument- 
ally saved not a few from the horrors of the 
"second death." It seems, therefore, to be the 
ordination of Providence, grounded in the ne- 
cessities of the case, that this class of ministers 
shall be an indispensable agency in achieving 
some of the most signal victories of the cross. 

III. Why, then, has this office fallen into such 
comparative neglect, and what can be done to re- 
store it to its primitive usefulness ? 

Want of clear conceptions of its Divine ap- 



Evangelists. ] 77 

pointment is one reason why it has been under- 
valued. The early settlers of New England, 
barely escaping with their lives from the perse- 
cutions of the hierarchy of the Episcopal church 
in the fatherland, carried out their views of min- 
isterial parity to such an extent as practically to 
exclude evangelists from the clerical category. 
They determined to have pastors, and learned 
and able pastors too, but they would have pas- 
tors only. This extreme simplification of Con- 
gregationalism crowded out the office from any- 
thing like a general recognition by the churches. 
Of necessity, under such an exclusive regimen, 
it fell into much disuse. 

Another cause is, that no provision has been 
made for the education and support of this class 
of men. Colleges were early founded to edu- 
cate pastors, and something like adequate sup- 
port is insured them after they have entered 
upon their work. Missionaries, too, both home 
and foreign, are educated with very consider- 
able reference to their respective fields of labor. 
Corresponding arrangements should be made for 
the equipment and sustenance of evangelists. 
It is contrary to the Scriptures and to common 
sense for men to go to warfare at their own 
charges. Evangelists need as thorough prepara- 
tion for their difficult calling as any other public 
23 



1 78 Fugitives. 

men, and they should have an equally substan- 
tial support in active life and amid the infirmi- 
ties of advanced age. A class of ministers, 
whose professional training has been so entirely 
neglected, and who are so destitute of any per- 
manent pecuniary support, cannot be expected 
to be highly influential. 1 

Still another cause may be found in the im- 
prudence of some who have claimed to exercise 
that office. Not every man who is distin- 
guished for piety, or zeal, or eloquence, is there- 
fore qualified to be an evangelist. Much less 
are they qualified who can find nothing else to do. 
The office is one of a very peculiar character, 
and the successful incumbent of it must have 
very peculiar qualifications. No calling is more 
delicate and difficult. An evangelist, who would 
enjoy the greatest success, must have sterling 
common sense and a profound knowledge of 
human nature. He must be prudent, if possible, 
beyond any other servant of the churches. He 
must have an ardent love of revivals of religion; 
an all-consuming anxiety for the immediate con- 
version of men ; an intuitive perception of the 
subtlest workings of the heart in times of the 

1 This evil, it is hoped, will now be in some measure removed 
by the American Revival Association, formed in Boston for the 
purpose, in part, of meeting this great public necessity. 



Evangelists. 1 79 

deepest religious interest ; a disgust with all 
tactics, and machinery, and eccentricities, and 
a firm reliance upon divine truth and the Holy 
Spirit for producing immediate results; that 
genial temper which will work kindly and fra- 
ternally with pastors, and leave them more 
firmly seated in the affections of their flocks ; 
and, finally, that spirit of self-renunciation which 
will lay him in the dust and keep him there, 
while he looks up to Heaven alone for success. 
Not a few of these obvious qualifications have 
been wanting in some who have claimed to fill 
that office, and this has done much to discredit 
the vocation with the Christian public. 

This introduces another reason why it has 
fallen into partial neglect, — some pastors have 
discountenanced it. Great infelicities in the style 
of preaching of some so-called evangelists, and 
in their mode of conducting religious meetings, 
have done not a little to injure the usefulness of 
the class. It cannot be doubted that many of 
their sermons have conveyed but the merest 
modicum of truth, and that they have depended 
more on strange expedients and startling novel- 
ties to produce impression. They seem to be- 
lieve — and some pastors have the same convic- 
tion — that it will not do to preach the doctrines 
of the Bible in revivals of religion ; that it will 



1 80 Fugitives. 

discourage the awakened, and prevent them 
from becoming Christians in the modern, easy- 
way. But there never was a more fatal mis- 
take, whether it is made by pastor or evangelist. 
Leviathan is not so tamed. Old Adam will be 
found to be too hard for such young Melanc- 
thons. The great truths of the Bible, such as 
the total native depravity of every human heart; 
the necessity of regeneration by the special in- 
fluences of the Holy Spirit; the utter indisposi- 
tion of every sinner to accept of Christ till he 
is "made willing" in the day of God's power; 
his inflexible persistence in rebellion up to the 
very last moment before the Spirit changes his 
heart; the vicarious atonement of Christ for the 
sins of the world ; the unconditional election in 
the ages of eternity of every one who becomes 
a Christian; the ability and duty of every sinner 
immediately to repent of sin and believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ ; justification by faith in His 
blood, and not by any works of our own; the 
unspeakable importance of good morals as an 
evidence, and their unspeakable worthlessness as 
the ground of pardon; the perfect justice of 
God in the endless destruction of the impeni- 
tent, — these great truths, and those of a cog- 
nate character, are the very " sword of the 
Spirit." Those who wield this " sword " with 



Evangelists. 181 

the greatest dexterity and power will be the 
most successful. 

It is not necessary here to enter into the ques- 
tion how large or how small an amount of truth 
is necessary to conversion. All that the occa- 
sion requires to be said is, that though conver- 
sions may sometimes take place where there is 
but very little light, yet, as a general fact, con- 
verts will be much more numerous, their religi- 
ous experience much more satisfactory, and their 
subsequent piety far more intelligent, symmetri- 
cal, and useful, when the leading truths of the 
Bible, in their solemn and comprehensive rela- 
tions, have been the most clearly presented to 
their minds, and enforced the most powerfully 
upon their hearts in revivals. Some, who have 
called themselves evangelists, have abstained 
from a thorough enforcement of these doctrines, 
and have depended more on their own ingenu- 
ity for results; and pastors, as well as others, 
have deplored their influence upon the cause of 
Zion. But it is the abuse, and not the proper 
administration of the office that is to be de- 
plored ; and every one should be just — not 
to say magnanimous — enough to make this 
obvious discrimination. The pastoral office, 
too, has often been egregiously perverted, but 
it has not therefore been thrown aside ; and 



182 Fugitives, 

Christ demands that the office of evangelist be 
treated with the same consideration and equity. 

But even where evangelists preach the truth 
and discharge all their duties with an average 
degree of propriety, it can hardly be expected 
that it will be done in precisely the way and 
manner of the pastors themselves. Idiosyncra- 
sies are not easily overcome, and pastors should 
make due allowance here. Even the apostle 
John was unwilling that devils should be cast 
out, unless it was done according to his views 
of propriety. But Christ rebuked his narrow 
conceptions, and said, "Forbid it not, for he that 
is not against us is for us." A pastor once 
prayed that God would revive his work among 
his people, but that he would do it in a regular 
way ; as if he was apprehensive that the Holy 
Spirit might fall into some irregularities. Now, 
while all irregularities on our part are to be 
studiously avoided, it is still true that the 
Holy Ghost often blesses efforts which appear 
to us quite inappropriate. We ought not, 
then to "limit the Holy One of Israel," but 
offer up the more reverent petition, " ' Send by 
whom thou wilt send,' so that thy work is re- 
vived and sinners saved." 

It cannot be disguised that some pastors are 
disposed to depreciate the labors of evangelists. 



Evangelists. 183 

Their success has been called in question, and it 
has been even gravely estimated that some of 
them ruin more souls than they save. But how 
can this be shown? The facts are clearly be- 
yond the scope of arithmetical computation. 
The data are quite insufficient to sustain the 
conclusion. 

A lesson of caution may be learned from the 
treatment which Whitefield received from some 
of the pastors and churches in this country. 
Their opposition to that excellent man arose 
rather from their lukewarmness than from any 
indiscretions on his part. It is an historical fact, 
which looks very much like a judicial dispensa- 
tion, that from the date of their opposition many 
of them seem to have been abandoned by the 
Holy Spirit; and, as a consequence, they went 
down the steep declivity of error from indiffer- 
ence to Arminianism, and from Arminianism to 
the cold and abysmal depths of Unitarianism, 
from which they never recovered. 

The history of our churches clearly demon- 
strates the necessity and usefulness of evange- 
lists. Enlightened candor cannot doubt that 
they have, in general, been eminently blessed 
by the Holy Spirit, and therefore we may ex- 
pect that such men will continue to be in all 
future time. Some of them have already " fin- 



1 84 Fugitives. 

ished their course," and having " turned many 
to righteousness," they are now brilliant gems, 
glittering with celestial lustre in the coronet of 
the Redeemer. Hence, that extreme conserva- 
tism which would exclude them from the field, 
if allowed its way, will shut multitudes from the 
kingdom of God. 

Let, then, this want of harmony between 
pastors and evangelists no longer continue to be 
a scandal in the churches. Let their relations to 
each other and to Zion be readjusted upon the 
principles of the New Testament. If evange- 
lists are imperfect men, so are pastors. Let 
pastors, then, extend to their associates in the 
sacred office the same indulgence which they 
ask for their own short-comings. The office of 
evangelists is one which Christ himself has ap- 
pointed. "Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it." 

In view of all the facts in the case, the public 
mind should settle down into the firm convic- 
tion, that there is no incompatibility between 
these two offices in the Christian ministry. 
They are parts of the same great system of 
means which has been divinely ordained for the 
salvation of the world, and both are worthy of 
all honor. Their spheres of duty are somewhat 
different, but they are coetaneous in their origin, 
coequal in their rights, and their incumbents 



Evangelists. 185 

should warmly cooperate in the prosecution of 
their common work. As there is no difference 
between them in grade, but only in gifts, neither 
can lord it over the other. Ephraim should 
not envy Judah, and Judah should not vex 
Ephraim. It is no reproach to pastors that evan- 
gelists can sometimes be more successful than 
themselves in commencing and conducting revi- 
vals of religion ; and it is no reproach to evan- 
gelists, that, after the flock has been gathered 
into the fold, pastors can better feed it with 
knowledge and understanding. " There are 
diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." When 
any extra work needs to be done for the revi- 
val or in a revival of religion, pastors should 
rejoice to be able to avail themselves of the 
assistance of judicious evangelists as "fellow- 
workers unto the kingdom of God ; " and evan- 
gelists should treat pastors with such good faith 
as to carry away their grateful benedictions as a 
part of their own reward. 

The tenacity with which the office of evan- 
gelists has held on upon the confidence of the 
churches, through all the Christian ages and 
through no inconsiderable neglect, conclusively 
proves that it is an agency for good which they 
will never dispense with. Luther and many of 

the Reformers served the churches more as evan- 

24 



186 Fugitives. 

gelists than as pastors. The trumpet-tongue of 
Peter Gabriel startled the people of the Nether- 
lands, and called listening thousands to repent- 
ance. Christmas Evans, in Wales, turned hun- 
dreds more to righteousness as an evangelist 
than he did as a pastor. The Tennents in this 
country were pastors, but they are better known 
by their evangelistic labors. Whitefield, burning 
with seraphic fervor for the salvation of men, 
crossed the Atlantic Ocean thirteen times, roused 
the churches of both hemispheres from their 
slumbers, launched the thunderbolts of truth 
into the consciences of the ungodly, and called 
multitudes into the kingdom of Christ, who are 
now rehearsing, in the language of heaven, their 
obligations to that eminent evangelist. When 
he preached on Boston Common, twenty thou- 
sand persons hung upon his lips, with breathless 
anxiety to learn what they must do to be saved. 
Brainerd, struggling all his life with feeble 
health, and dying at the early age of thirty, by 
his uncommon piety and fervid zeal preached 
the gospel with such overwhelming power, that 
the " untutored Indian " dropped his tomahawk, 
and cried, " Gutummakaulumeh," " Gutumma- 
kaulumeh " — " Have mercy upon me," " Have 
mercy upon me;" hundreds of red and white 
men were converted, and the churches raised to 



Evangelists. 187 

a far higher plane of holy living. Edwards, 
with a world-wide reputation as a pastor and 
theologian, when occasion offered, loved to " do 
the work of an evangelist." At Enfield, Con- 
necticut, on one of his preaching tours, he 
delivered his celebrated sermon on Sinners fall* 
ing into the hands of an angry God. With 
scarcely a single gesture, but with inexorable 
logic, impassioned earnestness and unsparing 
application of the truth, he drew such a vivid 
picture of the guilt of every sinner and of his 
danger of instant perdition, that the congrega- 
tion started to their feet and seized hold of the 
balusters of the pews to save themselves from 
sinking into hell. Summerfield, a man of accom- 
plished manners, consecrated spirit and persua- 
sive eloquence, in his brief and brilliant career, 
went through the churches in Great Britain and 
this country like an angel of light, contributed 
largely to the triumphs of the Redeemer, and left 
behind him a name perfumed with the very fra- 
grance of heaven. Nettleton, with a solemnity 
the most impressive and a dichotomizing ability 
the most searching, laid open the sinner's heart 
to his own astonished view, and pursued him, 
with persistent earnestness, through all his wind- 
ings and excuses till he surrendered at the feet of 
Jesus. Connecticut, New York and Massachu- 



1 88 Fugitives. 

setts will long have occasion for thankfulness 
that they were blessed with the labors of that 
successful evangelist. And if the heavens shall 
again open over us, and " the skies pour down 
righteousness," pastors will find their hands 
more than full ; other evangelists will be called 
into the field, and the mantles of these as- 
cended Elijahs will fall upon some youthful 
Elishas. 

Revivals of religion are the hope of the world. 
The theory that the world can be saved by occa- 
sional conversions and gradual additions to the 
churches, is little better than an apology for 
religious — or rather irreligious — indifference. 
The population of the globe is now estimated 
at one thousand millions. In what year of our 
Lord will they all be converted at that rate of 
proceeding ? Arithmetic cannot tell ; prophecy 
does not tell. Indeed it cannot be told, for the 
plan involves a sheer impossibility. That grad- 
ual theory, then, must be universally exploded. 
Revivals of far more then Pentecostal power 
are indispensable, and must be expected and 
sought for with an ardent faith by all the " sac- 
ramental host." Apostolic zeal must reanimate 
the entire ministry, and the churches must every- 
where be baptized with the Spirit from on high. 
Then the office of evangelists will be restored 



Evangelists. 189 

to its proper place among the great instrumen- 
talities for the conversion of the world. The 
watchmen will see eye to eye, and the Lord 
bring again Zion. Their perfect union will 
herald the morning of the Millennium. 




THE HOLY TRINITY. 

THE existence and the unity of God can 
be inferred from the light of nature, but 
the Trinity of Persons in that Unity is a mat- 
ter of written revelation alone. The Scrip- 
tures reveal the fact, that the One God exists 
in Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost ; but they do not propose that fact 
for comprehension by our reason, but for accept- 
ance by our faith. This peculiar mode of the 
Divine existence is, indeed, profoundly mysteri- 
ous, but its mystery only confirms its truth. 
That which is Infinite can never be brought 
within the measure of finite minds. The incon- 
ceivableness of the Trinity in Unity is, however, 
no greater than of the Oneness itself, or of any 
of its attributes. Sir William Hamilton, prob- 
ably the ablest metaphysician of the age, has 
demonstrated, that there are many things which 
are inconceivable by us, which nevertheless must 
be true. The conceivable is not the limit of the 
true. The Trinity, then, may be a fact, though 



The Holy Trinity. 191 

it be inconceivable ; and we are left to accept 
or reject it, according as it is revealed or not 
revealed in the Bible. 

It has long been a favorite, and, as some have 
thought, a decisive objection to the Tri-Unity 
of Persons in the Godhead, that it cannot be 
understood by the human reason. But Profes- 
sor Mansel, no mean authority, says : — " Let 
Religion begin where it will, it must begin with 
that which is above Reason. We may seek for 
a Religion within the limits of the bare Reason, 
and we shall not find it, simply because no such 
thing exists." And again ; — " The objection, 
4 How can the One be many, or the Many one ? ' 
is so far from telling with peculiar force against 
the catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity, that 
it has precisely the same power or want of power, 
against any conception in which we may attempt 
to represent the Divine Nature and Attributes, 
or indeed to represent the Infinite at all." * Rob- 
ert Anchor Thompson says : — "In what sense 
the Divine Persons are Three, and in what sense 
they are One, are mysteries of the Infinite be- 
yond our knowledge. The Internal Nature of 
the Deity, the relations of the Divine Persons, 
cannot but be incomprehensible. But though 
unknown in their Eternity, the Persons of the 

1 Bampton Lectures, VI., pp. 165-169 and 170. 



192 Fugitives. 

Godhead become known in their relations to 
mankind ; and their co-eternal Deity is the found- 
ation of revealed religion." 1 Daniel Webster, 
in his Confession of Faith, says : — "I believe 
that God exists in Three Persons ; nor is it any 
objection to this belief, that I cannot compre- 
hend how One can be Three, or Three One. I 
hold it my duty to believe, not what I can com- 
prehend or account for, hut what my Maker teaches 
me" What may be the precise adjustment of 
the Persons in the transcendent depths of the 
Divine Existence, we do not know; but in His 
theophany or revelation of Himself to us, a 
Threefold Distinction (usually called Persons 
for want of a better term) is disclosed, and is a 
matter of intelligent belief. 

Having disposed of this philosophical objec- 
tion to the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, 
let us proceed to a consideration of the proofs 
of the doctrine itself. Though our primary de- 
pendence for the proof of this great article of the 
Christian faith must be upon the Scriptures them- 
selves, there is a large amount of corroborative 
evidence, which, taken by itself alone, would 
form the strongest presumption if not demon- 
stration of its truth. Our limits necessarily pre- 
clude anything like an exhaustive statement of 

1 Christian Theism, p. 335. 



The Holy Trinity. 193 

the grounds, Scriptural and extra Scriptural, on 
which the doctrine of the Divine Trinity im- 
movably stands. The most that can now be 
attempted is a rapid and discursive view of the 
general evidence in the case, — the details of 
which are altogether too multitudinous for our 
present use. Our argument will embrace the 
biblical, the historical, the providential, and the 
practical proofs of the doctrine of the Holy 
Trinity. 

I. The Biblical evidence. 

Here it is necessary to premise, once for all, 
that the Personality of God, as revealed in the 
Scriptures, is asserted as against Pantheism, and 
His Unity as against Polytheism, and not -as 
against a Trinity of Persons. The only ques- 
tion then remaining is, whether He exists in 
One Person only, or in Three Persons. No- 
body believes in a Duality of Persons, — it is 
One, or it is Three. All those texts of Script- 
ure, then, which speak of Two Persons only, 
necessarily carry with them or imply the Third. 
If there are more than One, there are Three. 
Holding fast, then, the strict Unity of God as 
to His essence, let us examine some of the Script- 
ural proofs that He exists as Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, each with a common consciousness, 
cooperating, interpenetrating, and interacting, — 
25 



194 Fugitives. 

ineffably by human language, inconceivably by 
finite reason, — 

One inexplicably Three, 
One in simplest Unity. 

l . Some of the passages which imply or as- 
sert two or three of the Persons in the Godhead 
conjointly. Scattered indices are found through- 
out the Old Testament, that the mode of the 
Divine Existence is altogether peculiar, — faintly 
yet significantly foreshadowing the fuller revela- 
tion of that mode in the New. And we might 
perhaps expect beforehand, that a doctrine of 
such peculiarity and importance would be very 
early intimated to our race ; accordingly we 
find that it was so done in the very first chapter 
and verse of the Bible. 

The Hebrew word Elohim, translated God in 
the Old Testament, is a plural noun, and thus we 
have some indication of the Trinity in the Di- 
vine Name itself. The construction of that noun 
with other nouns, and with verbs and pronouns, 
sometimes in the singular and sometimes in 
the plural number, is a remarkable grammatical 
anomaly, which can be accounted for only on 
the supposition that a plurality of Persons in 
the Divine Unity is intended to be set forth; 
and thus the very syntax of the language inti- 
mates the fact that more Persons than one exist 



The Holy Trinity. 195 

in the Unsearchable God. This plurality of 
Persons is perhaps still more distinctly shadowed 
forth in the colloquy which Jehovah held with 
Himself upon the creation of man, and on othei 
occasions, in the use of the plural pronouns : — 
" Let us make man, in our image, after our like- 
ness." "And the Lord God said, Behold, the 
man has become as one of us, to know good 
and evil." "And the Lord said, Go to, let us 
go down, and there confound their language." 

These expressions admit of no consistent ex- 
planation, except upon the hypothesis that there 
is more than One Person in the One God. It 
is worthy of special notice in this connection 
that, while Elohim, the Hebrew name of God, 
is plural, and plural pronouns are so freely used 
in the consultations of Jehovah with Himself, 
yet, to guard against conveying the idea of tri- 
theism or polytheism, and to keep up the doc- 
trine of the strictest Unity of God, — the style 
of unity is immediately resumed ; as where God 
said, " Let us make man," it is instantly added, 
" So God created man in His image ; " — using 
the singular pronoun to designate and preserve 
the Oneness of the Deity. 1 These very peculiar 

1 " To that said in the plural, ' Let us make man,' is yet sub- 
joined in the singular, ' And God made man ; ' and to that said in 
the plural, « After our likeness," is subjoined in the singular, ' After 
the image of God." — Confessions of Augustine, (Andover ed.) p. 
398. 



1 96 Fugitives. 

syntactical constructions pervade the Old Testa- 
ment. Now to suppose that they are the result 
of carelessness, would be an impeachment of 
the inspiration of the writers; but to suppose 
them a matter of intention, is an admission of a 
plurality of Persons. 

" Seek ye out the book of the Lord, and 
read ; for my mouth it hath commanded, and 
His Spirit it hath gathered them." Here the 
Trinity of Persons is again very distinctly inti- 
mated. " And now the Lord God and His Spirit 
hath sent Me." In this passage the Three Per- 
sons are discriminated with unmistakable clear- 
ness. 

Passing on to the New Testament, we find 
the Three Persons revealed with great formality 
and precision. 

" Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, bap- 
tizing them in the Name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." This is the 
Apostolic Commission. The moment of the 
Ascension has now arrived, and these are among 
the last words of the Redeemer. Parting words 
are always the weightiest. The very substance 
of the Evangel to be proclaimed to the " na- 
tions," was now to be condensed into one com- 
prehensive and most explicit epitome. Now, 
if ever, — while the Old economy is to cease, 



The Holy Trinity. 197 

and the New one to begin ; now, while the 
wondering disciples are entranced with the sig- 
nificant preparations for His departure, while the 
heavens are parting over his head, and the wide 
world is impatient to be discipled, — now, if 
ever, will the Master announce the central doc- 
trine of His religion. We listen with bated 
breath to learn what it is. " Go, teach the na- 
tions, and baptize them," not in the general 
name of God, but in His new Name, His Tri- 
une Name, the Name by which He is hereafter 
to be known, — " the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost." 

The Rev. Dr. Huntington, lately Preacher to 
the University at Cambridge, and a recent con- 
vert from Unitarianism, says of these parting 
words of the Redeemer : " Our faith is here sum- 
moned to the Three Persons of the One God ; 
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. No 
hint is given that there is any difference of na- 
ture, dignity, duration, power, or glory between 
them. There is nothing in the situation, the 
relations, or the contents of the Divine formula 
to suggest that either of the Three is less than 
the others, or less than God. The obvious, un- 
forced, natural interpretation is, that "the Three 
are Persons, and that the Persons are Three." 1 

1 Christian Believing and Living, p. 356. 



198 Fugitives, 

With every believer in the divine authority of 
the Scriptures we might here pause, and close 
our argument in proof of the Tri-personality of 
the Godhead. Christ himself has settled the 
point, under circumstances which called for the 
exactest statement of the fact. He has done it 
with even arithmetical precision. The proof, 
however, is wondrously cumulative. 

" The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
the love of God, and the communion of the 
Holy Ghost, be with you all." 

In this apostolic benediction the precedence 
is given to the Son ; — doubtless with the intent 
of showing that the Three Persons are " equal 
in power and glory," and that the precedence of 
either before the others is merely conventional 
or official, and not indicative of any difference 
in their essence, or in the interior and permanent 
basis of their being. 

Before we dismiss the topic of the Three 
Persons in their conjoint character, it is worthy 
of special remark that the full revelation of 
God, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost, was reserved till Christ's incarnation, — 
when it became necessary that the Three should 
be specified in their distinct severalty, and in 
their correlate relations. When that necessity 
occurred, the absolute truth, which before had 



The Holy Trinity. 199 

been but partially disclosed, blazed out in char- 
acters of living light upon the pages of the New 
Testament. 

2. Some of the additional Scripture proofs of 
the Supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ. 

As none except atheists and pantheists disbe- 
lieve the real divinity of the Father Almighty, 
we pass to consider that of the Son. 

Christ is called God fifteen times, and the Lord 
seventy-seven times. The Father calls Him 
God : " But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, 
O God, is forever and ever." " His Son Jesus 
Christ. This is the true God." "And they shall 
call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted 
is, God with us." " In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
Word was God" " Great is the mystery of god- 
liness ; God was manifest in the flesh." " Christ, 
who is over all, God blessed forever." "And His 
name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The 
Mighty God." 

Self-Existence and Eternity are ascribed to 
Christ : " In the beginning was the Word" " He 
is before all things." " Before Abraham was, I 
am." " I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning 
and the end, the first and the last." 

Omnipotence is another of His attributes, and 
the creation of all things is ascribed to Him: 



200 Fugitives. 

"All things were made by Him, and without 
Him was not anything made that was made." 
"For by Him were all things created that are 
in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and in- 
visible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, 
or principalities, or powers ; all things were cre- 
ated by Him, and for Him ; and He is before 
all things, and by Him all things consist." 

Christ wrought Miracles in His own name and 
strength. He healed all manner of diseases, cast 
out devils, gave sight to the blind, hearing to 
the deaf, made the lame walk, and the dumb 
speak, fed thousands of people with a few loaves 
and fishes, raised the dead, and even had the 
power to " lay down his own life, and power to 
take it again." Unlike all other workers of mir- 
acles, he claimed to overrule and set aside the 
laws of nature by his own inherent, underived, 
undelegated power ; and the Father never dis- 
puted but expressly conceded that claim. 

Christ was Omniscient. He said to the Church 
in Thyatira: "And all the churches shall know 
that i" am He who searcheth the reins and the 
hearts." He " needed not that any should tes- 
tify of man, for He knew what was in man" 
" Simon, son of Jonas, loveth thou me ? Yea, 
Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that 
I love thee." How often did He overwhelm 



The Holy Trinity. 20 1 

the Pharisees, and how did He astonish His dis- 
ciples and the woman of Samaria, by disclosing 
the fact, that He read their very thoughts and was 
perfectly acquainted with their histories. His 
Omniscience qualifies Him to be the Judge of 
the world. " Before Him shall be gathered all 
nations, and He shall separate them one from 
another, as a Shepherd divideth the sheep from 
the goats." " He shall give to every man ac- 
cording to his works." " The Father judgeth no 
man, but hath committed all Judgment unto the 
Son ; " and for this declared reason, " that all 
men should honor the Son even as they honor 
the Father;" and then, as if to annihilate the 
hopes of all who think to honor the Father 
while rejecting the equality of His Son, it is 
added, with the closest personal application to 
such men, " He that honoreth not the Son, hon- 
or eth not the Father which hath sent Him.'' 

Omnipresence is ascribed to Christ. " For 
where two or three are gathered together in my 
name, there am I in the midst of them." No 
matter where they are " gathered together," — 
whether in one zone or another, whether on con- 
tinent or ocean, whether in either hemisphere, 
Christ is " in the midst of them." This Greek 
idiom teaches His universal presence. When 

He invested His disciples with the commission 
26 



202 Fugitives. 

to " preach the Gospel to every creature," He 
encouraged them with the assurance, " Lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
This broad declaration has neither sense nor per- 
tinence, except on the supposition that He is 
everywhere present. 

Divine IVorship is offered to Christ. 

Peter refused the worship of Cornelius, Paul 
and Barnabas that of the Lystrans, and John 
that of an angel, but Christ never declined the 
religious homage of men or angels. Thomas 
worshipped Him, when he found to his surprise 
that He had indeed risen from the dead, and 
exclaimed, " My Lord and my God ! " When, 
at the ascension, " a cloud received Him out of 
their sight," all the disciples "worshipped Him, 
and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." Ste- 
phen, the proto-martyr, worshipped Him with 
his dying breath, and when the very visions of 
God were so wondrously opened to him that he 
could not be mistaken as to His Divine charac- 
ter : "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon 
God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 
Ananias said to Saul of Tarsus, when Christ so 
"revealed" Himself to that persecutor's soul 
that it prostrated him to the earth, — " Arise, and 
be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on 
the name of the Lord" The early disciples were 



The Holy Trinity. 2o3 

so much in the habit of praying directly to 
Christ, that they were familiarly known and 
designated, as those who " called upon His 
name." Twenty times, in the New Testament, 
" grace, mercy, and peace " are implored of God 
the Son, equally with God the Father. Besides, 
God the Father requires all "the thrones, do- 
minions, principalities, and powers " in heaven 
to worship the Son : " When He bringeth in 
the First Begotten into the world, He saith, 
'And let all the angels of God worship Him.'" 
And they all delight to do so ; for, says the apoc- 
alyptic apostle, " I heard the voice of many 
angels round the throne, and the living creatures, 
and the elders ; and the number of them was 
ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands 
of thousands saying, with a loud voice, Worthy 
is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and 
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, 
and glory, and blessing! And every creature 
which is in heaven, and on the earth, and such 
as are in the sea, even all that are in them, heard 
I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and 
power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the 
Throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever ! 
And the four living creatures said, Amen." 

We have now cited but a small part of the 
Scripture testimony to the Supreme Divinity of 



204 Fugitives. 

the Son of God. The Greek language — a 
language of the most affluent copiousness — 
is laid under contribution for its most exalted 
phrases to describe the character of the Saviour. 
It can invoke no higher terms to set forth the 
nature of the Father. The Father and the Son, 
then, are coequal. 

3. Passing over the mass of evidence that the 
nature of the Son is complex , — embracing both 
the Divine in its Absoluteness and the Human in 
its Perfectness, that He is both the " very God " 
and a real man, — we will close the Scriptural 
proof of the Trinity with a brief view of the 
evidence for «the Personality and Divinity of the 
Holy Ghost. 

As to His Personality, — in opposition to the 
Unitarian view that He is a mere attribute or 
afflatus of the Father,— we might cite again the 
baptismal formula and the apostolic benedic- 
tions, as placing that point beyond all reasonable 
doubt. Personal existence is there as clearly 
ascribed to Him, as to either the Father or the 
Son. The multiplied cases of the use of the 
personal pronouns also prove His Personality. 
" He shall teach you all things." "He shall tes- 
tify of Me." " I will send Him unto you." 
" And when He is come." " When He, the 
Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into 



The Holy Trinity. 205 

all truth." "He shall not speak of Himself." "He 
shall glorify me." " The Holy Ghost said, Sep- 
arate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work where- 
unto / have called them." It is not possible for 
language to convey the idea of personality more 
explicitly. 

There are also many texts which ascribe to 
the Holy Spirit the personal acts of coming, tes- 
tifying, receiving, showing, teaching, hearing, speak- 
ing, commanding, forbidding, reproving, approving, 
etc. All these are the acts of a several, conscious, 
intelligent being, and not of a mere impersonal, 
dependent influence. 

As to His Divinity, all those passages hereto- 
fore cited where He is coupled with the Father 
and the Son, are decisive proofs. Besides, He 
is called God. Satan filled the heart of Ananias 
" to lie to the Holy Ghost," but it is immediately 
subjoined, as if for the special purpose of plac- 
ing His Deity beyond all dispute, — " Thou 
hast not lied unto men, but unto God." Chris 
tians are described by the convertible phrases, 
the " temple of God " and the " temple of the 
Holy Ghost" He is Omniscient. " Who hath 
directed the Spirit of the Lord, or, being His 
counsellor, hath taught Him ? " " The Spirit 
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." 
He is Omnipresent. " Whither shall I go from 



206 Fugitives. 

thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy 
presence ? " He is Eternal, for He is expressly 
called the eternal Spirit." He inspired the proph- 
ets to predict future events ; — " For the prophecy 
came not in old time by the will of man, but 
holy men of God spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost" He inspired the writers of the 
Bible so as to give them a knowledge of facts 
which they did not already possess, and to pre- 
serve them from all possible error in their state- 
ments, — " all Scripture was given by inspiration 
of God." He convicts men of sin : — " And when 
He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, 
of righteousness, and of judgment." He converts 
men : — " Except a man be born of water and of 
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
God." " That which is born of the Spirit is 
Spirit." The wonderful scenes of the day of 
Pentecost, Peter expressly affirms were the work 
of the Holy Ghost, — "He hath shed forth this 
which ye now see and hear." 

This various evidence leaves no reasonable 
doubt of the real Personality and Deity of the 
Third Person in the adorable Trinity ; and the 
amount, the explicitness, the directness of the 
proof now produced from the Scriptures of 
the Tri-Unity of Persons in the Godhead, are, in 
our judgment, incontestably conclusive. " It is," 



The Holy Trinity. 207 

says Paley, " an immense conclusion that there 
is a God ; " and the " conclusion " that He exists 
in Three Persons, where we consider the neces- 
sary and far-reaching effects of that Tri-Person- 
ality upon the salvation of men, is perhaps 
equally " immense." 

II. The Historical evidence. 

It is a well known fact that most of the sys- 
tems of pagan mythology have their triads or 
trinities, — a feature which we cannot conceive 
could have existed at all, and much less that it 
could have so widely obtained among the na- 
tions of antiquity, if they had not borrowed the 
idea from the Jewish Scriptures. This fact is 
therefore strong corroborative evidence that the 
doctrine of the Trinity is taught in the Old 
Testament. Besides, this doctrine has been be- 
lieved in all the ages of the Christian Church, 
and it is therefore strongly accredited by the 
analogy of faith. The word Trinity is not, 
indeed, applied to this doctrine in the Bible; 
but, as Dr. Huntington has well remarked, " it 
is a definite and just description of what the 
Bible teaches, and there is no reason why it 
should not be adopted and used. It is sanc- 
tioned by the venerable and hallowed custom of 
Christian centuries, and of innumerable hosts of 
confessors, sages, and saints." Justin Martyr, 



208 Fugitives. 

Athenagoras, and Theophilus, among the early 
Greek Fathers, and Tertullian, Novatian, and 
Cyprian, among the Latin, earnestly defended 
the doctrine of the Trinity against the heretics 
of that day, though of course it was not done, 
and could not have been done with all the 
modern scientific exactness of expression. 
Haydn, in his learned work, " The Dictionary 
of Dates," says: "The doctrine of the Trinity is 
generally received by all Christians. Theophi- 
lus, bishop of Antioch, who flourished in the 
second century, was the first who used the term 
'Trinity, to express the Three sacred Persons in 
the Godhead." 1 The Apostles' Creed is, per- 
haps, the earliest formal Confession of Faith, 
and it most distinctly affirms the doctrine of the 
Trinity : " I believe in One God, the Father 
Almighty, maker of heaven and earth ; and in 
Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was 
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin 
Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was cruci- 
fied, dead and buried ; he descended into hell ; 
the third day he rose again from the dead; he 
ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right 
hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence 
he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. 
I believe in the Holy Ghost ; the Holy Catholic 

1 Art. Trinity and Trinitarians , p. 618. 



The Holy Trinity. log 

Church ; the communion of saints ; the forgive- 
ness of sins ; the resurrection of the body ; and 
the life everlasting. Amen." Opposition to 
the doctrine of the Trinity by the Gnostics, 
Ebionites, and Arians, induced Constantine the 1 
Great to summon an ecumenical council of 
divines, to pass upon that important question. 
That Council met at Nice, in the year A. D. 
325, and was composed of 318 clergymen, 
who represented the intelligence and piety of 
that period. They incorporated the doctrine of 
the Trinity into what is called the Nicene Creed, 
and with such formality and scientific precision 
of statement that it has been accepted, with 
very little modification, by all Evangelical 
Christians to the present day. Thus, it appears, 
that from the time the baptismal formula was 
given by Christ to the apostles, the doctrine of 
the Trinity grew into greater accuracy of defi- 
nition and clearness of statement, just as rapidly 
as it was denied and discussed, till it became 
a most settled and distinctive article of the 
Christian Faith. Since the formal incorporation 
of this Scripture doctrine into the creed of 
Christendom by the Council of Nice, the world 
has been more nearly unanimous in its belief of 
that article than perhaps of any other saving that 
of the existence of God. It has been held in 
27 



2io 4 Fugitives. 

all the Christian ages with a unanimity so nearly 
entire, that it can, as safely as any other truth, 
challenge the famous test of Vincent of Lirens, — 
"It must be believed always^ everywhere ', and by 
"all." " Truth," says Dr. Huntington, " is not 
determined by majorities; and yet it would be 
contrary to the laws of our constitution not to 
be affected by a testimony so vast, uniform, and 
sacred, as that which is rendered by the com- 
mon belief of the Christian history and the 
Christian countries to the truth of the Trinity." 
"In the face of libraries of close controversy, 
and the number of the schools, — all of them 
signs of the intense vitality and power hidden in 
the inmost spiritual economy of this article, — 
the strong thinkers upon it are, after all, essenti- 
ally and persistently at one : the early and me- 
diaeval Fathers, the Continental and English 
Reformers, the Anglican scholars, the Puritan 
and American divines, Athanasius and Tholuck, 
Fenelon and Knox, Augustine and Anselm, 
Calvin and Taylor, Luther and Bossuet, Bull 
and Baxter, Horsley and Howe, Pearson, New- 
man, Pascal, Cudworth, Wolf, Butler, Tauler 
and Hopkins, Waterland and Edwards, Sher- 
lock and Dwight, Stuart and Neander. Nice, 
Trent, Augsburg, Westminster, Princeton, An- 
dover, New Haven, with their symbols, not- 



The Holy Trinity. 21 1 

withstanding their differences, are Trinitarian"^ 
It will strongly intensify this statement to add, 
that the national and cosmopolitan churches — 
churches, whose creeds have been subjected to 
the most searching examination and comparison 
by their ablest men — are unanimously Trinita- 
rian. Of the large bodies of professed Christians 
whose faith is distinctively Trinitarian, may be 
mentioned the Church of Rome, the Church of 
the Waldenses, the Church of England, the Free 
Church of Scotland, the Moravian Church, the 
Church of the Huguenots, the Presbyterian 
Churches in the United States, the Episcopal 
Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, the 
various Dutch Churches, and the Baptist and 
Congregational Churches. 2 

Thus uniform has been the belief of Chris- 
tians, in all the ages and nations, that the Infin- 
ite God exists in Three Persons, the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost. That sublimest of 
doxologies, Gloria Patri, etc., was ordained to 
be sung in the churches as early as A. D. 382 ; 

1 Serm. XX. pp. 358, 361. 

2 Though the Unitarians are Congregationalists they are really 
no exception to Congregational churches, inasmuch as they reject 
all creeds, and have no recognized system of belief. Their so- 
called churches are generally mere continuations of churches which 
were organized under Orthodox auspices, and are held together by 
other influences than a symbol of faith. 



212 Fugitives. 

and from that year to the present, it has been 
sounding along the galleries of time, taken up 
by successive generations as their predecessors 
have fallen in death, rolling on with increasing 
volume over land and sea, sending its ecstatic pul- 
sations into closets, families, conference rooms, 
churches, cathedrals, till the very air is choral 
with the song, and the wide world is transported 
to heaven by the general hallelujah. As the sun 
rises of a Sabbath morning, Christians of the 
Orient begin the song; Europe, rapt into ecstasy 
by the glad acclaim, with deeper, richer melody, 
and more thundering tones, prolongs the mighty 
anthem; and America and the Isles of the West, 
with their myriad voices, send up their responses 
in loftiest adoration of the great Three in One. 

" The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks shout to each other, 
And mountain- tops from distant mountains catch the flying joy, 
Till nation after nation taught the strain, 
Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round." 

III. The Providential evidence. 

It perhaps might naturally be expected, that, if 
the Trinity of Persons in the Infinite God be so 
vital a truth in the Christian system, He would 
somehow by his Providence mark and distinguish 
it, as possessing that preeminent importance. 
He has so distinguished it, and now let us see 
how unmistakably He has done it. 



The Holy Trinity. 213 

He has so ordered events in His Providence, 
that Chronology comes in with its attestation to 
the truth of the Trinity. Time is reckoned to 
and from the advent of the Redeemer. The 
date of his birth, — Annus Domini, the year of 
ou Lord, — is the point from which time is com- 
puted among Christian nations, and will doubt- 
less continue to be to the end of the world. 
Accordingly we take up our almanacs, and read 
on the title-page, "The Almanac for the year of 
our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ." Why does 
it not read the year of Paul, or Plato, or Luther? 
Plainly, because neither of them, nor any other 
merely human being, is entitled to such a dis- 
tinction. No mere man is our " Lord and Sav- 
iour." But Jesus Christ is both. Such being 
His relations to the human race, it was fitting, — 
preeminently fitting, — that time should be reckoned 
from the epoch of his coming, to keep those 
relations, so fraught with interest and hope, for- 
ever fresh in the minds of men. The Creation, — 
Annus Mundi, — had been commemorated as the 
normal starting point in the measurement of 
time; but when "Christ came, who is over all, 
God blessed forever," there was an eminent pro- 
priety, that an event of so much greater im- 
portance should be forever after similarly dis- 
tinguished. 



214 Fugitives. 

" 'T was great to speak a world from naught, 
'T was greater to redeem." 

Thus God, by his Providence, makes our very 
almanacs, — about the last book in the world 
where we should expect to find any evidences 
of the Trinity, — proclaim every year to the na- 
tions the Supreme Divinity of his Beloved Son, 
and consequently the reality of the Trinity. If 
it be objected to this view that, among, the Mo- 
hammedans, time is reckoned from the Hegira of 
the False Prophet, and that among the ancient 
Romans it was computed from the foundation 
of the Imperial City, we have to say that our 
present argument has to do only with those who 
accept Christianity as the true religion. The 
question is not between Christianity and any 
false sytem, but between those who, profess- 
ing to believe the Christian religion, accept or 
reject the doctrine of the Trinity. With all 
such we hold this argument has real weight, 
and is entitled to their serious considera- 
tion. 

And books of 'Travel, too, are made by the 
Providence of God to teach the same great 
truth. Where is it that the traveller, as he 
roams over this wide world, finds his most sa- 
cred associations awakened ? Is it when he 
visits Niagara or the Mammoth Cave? Is it 



The Holy Trinity. 215 

when he explores the arcana of Nineveh, or 
exhumes the long-forgotten generations of Pom- 
peii, or ascends the Pyramids of Egypt ? Is it 
not, rather, when he visits Bethlehem and Naz- 
areth, Capernaum and Bethsaida, Gethsemane 
and Calvary ? Go where you will in this world, 
no scenes awaken such an interest or call up 
such solemn associations, as those where the 
Lord of life and glory was born, lived, suffered, 
died. Every traveller wishes to see those hal- 
lowed places, — he never feels that he has trav- 
elled much till he has seen them ; and when at 
last he reaches them, be he Christian or be he 
infidel, his first impulse is to take the shoes 
from his feet, for the place whereon he standeth 
is holy ground. 

Now, the question is, Why does he feel so ? 
Ah ! these sacred associations, which make him 
tread so softly and bring unbidden tears to his 
eyes, are so many beautiful tributes to the God- 
head of the Redeemer and the truth of the Trin- 
ity. If it be said that the Providence of God is 
no more significant in producing these impres- 
sions, than it is in awakening similar ones at the 
sacred places of false religionists, it is a sufficient 
reply that the one is the result of an intelligent 
appreciation of the historical facts in the case, 
while the other is the compound result of super- 



2 1 6 Fugitives. 

stition and fanaticism. Whatever elements there 
may be which are common to them both, the 
sacred associations of Palestine are taken out of 
the category of false systems, and stamped with 
the Divine impress, by all those arguments which 
prove that Christianity alone is from Heaven. 
With all its professed friends, then, the argu- 
ment should have weight, when the question 
between themselves is, whether the doctrine of 
the Trinity be true or not. 

And the Providence of God has so ordered 
it that Profane Jiistory comes with her homage, 
and lays it at the feet of the Trinity. 

Read the remarkable confession of Hume, 
with all his scepticism, that it is to the character 
and principles of the Puritans that England 
owes the freedom of her Constitution. Read 
Macaulay's celebrated critique on Milton, which, 
though one of his earliest, is one of his most 
popular literary efforts, and mark the truthfulness 
with which he sets forth the religious principles 
of the Puritans, — principles which derived all 
their tone and power from the doctrine of the 
Trinity. 

And Bancroft, too, the American scholar and 
historian, though educated in the Unitarian faith, 
has, after long observation, from his historical 
standpoint, of the effects of these two systems 



The Holy Trinity. 217 

upon the character and destiny of man, materi- 
ally altered his creed, and has published to the 
world his present belief in the following sub- 
lime language : — " From the time that this 
truth of the Triune God was clearly announced, 
He was no longer conceived as a remote and 
shadowy causality, but appeared as all that is 
good, and beautiful, and true ; as Goodness itself 
Incarnate, Interceding, Redeeming, and Inspir- 
ing, the Infinite Mediator, Paraclete, and Com- 
forter. The doctrine once communicated to 
man was ineradicable. It spread as widely, as 
swiftly as the light; and the idea of 4 God with 
us ' dwells in every system of thought that can 
pretend to vitality, in every oppressed nation 
whose struggles to be free have the prospect of 
success, in every soul that sighs for redemption." 1 
The Providence of God has so ordered it 
again, that Poetry comes in and hangs her gar- 
lands upon the Cross. Though there is much 
of poetry which is tributary to the interests of 
error, it is a truth, full of comfort to every good 
man, that the greater part of that which has 
the firmest hold of the human heart, and is the 
most operative upon our race, is religious poetry, 
and is highly charged with the Evangelical ele- 
ment. Shakspeare is about the only important 

l Address before the N. T. Historical Society, 1854, p. 26. 
28 



218 Fugitives. 

exception to this general truth. Milton, with 
his vast erudition and gorgeous richness of lan- 
guage, will always hold his place, high among 
the moral influences which form the character 
of men. 

" Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one Greater 
Man restore us," — 

mankind will never cease to read. But who 
shall describe the influence of Wesley and of 
Watts upon the present character and eternal 
destiny of our race % Their religious hymns 
have long animated the faith, quickened the 
devotions, and evoked the hosannas of Chris- 
tians, and will continue to do so in the purest 
ages of the Church. While Watts is training 
" Infant Minds " in the nursery to lisp the Re- 
deemer's praise, both these lyric poets of the 
Church are leading the songs of assembled hosts, 
in all the evangelical congregations that begirt 
the globe. Cowper and Doddridge, Steele and 
Young, Montgomery and Heber, Tennyson and 
Browning, Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, are 
the very handbooks of poetry in almost every 
intelligent family, and are working in the same 
Evangelical direction. 



The Holy Trinity. 219 

If then that poetry is the best, which has the 
firmest hold on human hearts, which everybody 
will read and will sing, which forms the taste, 
and moulds the principles, and creates the char- 
acter of millions for another Life, — is not that 
Providence intensely significant which has 
raised up such men for the especial purpose of 
sounding the praises of the Trinity in every 
land? 

And Music, too, in the Providence of God, is 
made to chant its anthems in adoration of the 
Trinity. This noble art has also been prosti- 
tuted to the worst purposes, but its primal, un- 
perverted province was seen when the morning 
stars sang together, "to celebrate the glory of 
the Second Person, as He laid the foundations 
of the earth." From the time of David, music 
has tried u its choicest strains " in honor of Re- 
deeming Love. How much it does in the 
family, the prayer-meeting, the sanctuary, to 
give wing to the devotions of the people of 
God! Go where you will over this great globe; 
let the assembly of devout Christians you find 
be " the two or three " in the private circle, or 
the " great congregation " in the vast cathedral ; 
and let the hymn be given out, — 

" All hail the power of Jesus' name," — 

which everybody feels to be sacrilege to sing to 



220 Fugitives. 

any other tune than " Coronation," — and the in- 
stant preparation, the brightening countenance, 
the outpouring hallelujah, — 

" Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown Him Lord of all," — 

attest the fervent homage of every pious heart 
to the Redeemer of the world, and that no other 
theme equals this in its appeals to the Christian 
sensibilities of men. 

God has so ordered it, also, that the greatest 
musical composition the world has seen was writ- 
ten in express honor of the Deity of His Son. 
We refer, as every one knows, to Handel's Ora- 
torio, " The Messiah." Handel composed that 
immortal work more than a hundred years ago, 
but it is only within a recent period that musical 
taste in America or Europe became so cultivated 
as to appreciate its dramatic character, its melt- 
ing tenderness, its unrivalled majesty. From 
the soothing recitative with which it opens, — 

" Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God," 

intended to prepare the mind for his advent, — 
on through the annunciation, birth, life, cruci- 
fixion, death, resurrection, ascension and en- 
thronement of the " Messiah," to its sublime 
finale, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain," 
etc., in which heaven, earth, and sea vie with 



The Holy Trinity. 221 

each other in His loftiest praise, — we have 
the grandest tribute of music to the glory of the 
Adorable Trinity. How much out of harmony 
with the theme must be every Unitarian, who 
attempts to sing that great Oratorio ! 

Now our argument is, why did God raise up 
the immortal Handel, endow him with such 
transcendent genius, direct his mind to this 
great subject, and enable him to produce a work 
of such unapproached and ever-growing power, 
unless it was to proclaim to all the earth the 
Trinity of His Person? If His Providence ex- 
tends to every event, — if it directs alike the 
orbs of heaven and the sparrow's fall, — then, in 
the particulars now recited and in many more, it 
has made the Chronology, the Travels, the His- 
tory, the Poetry, and the Music of the world de- 
clare His Tri-Unity. We see the footprints of 
the Trinity all along the pathway of His Provi- 
dential dispensations as unmistakably, as we hear 
His footfalls through the corridors of all time. 

IV. The Practical evidence. 

A doctrine, of so much moment as we have 
seen the Trinity to be, must necessarily exert 
a decided influence on the piety of the world. 
Indeed it is clear, that, where this is discarded, 
little remains to make men Christians at all. It 
is, of all other truths, the most intensely prac- 



222 Fugitives, 

tical. It comprises the sublime working-power 
of Redemption. Unitarianism, in its natural, dy- 
namic operation as a system, does not regenerate 
men, for it denies the Divinity both of the Ato- 
ner and of the Regenerator, as well as that deep 
depravity of man which makes an Atonement 
and a Regeneration indispensable. It is there- 
fore powerless for the conversion of men, both 
because it does not admit the necessity of such 
conversion, and because it rejects the Divine 
appliances to produce that result. Unitarians 
may use the terms Sin, Atonement, Regenera- 
tion, but they use them in a sense so superficial 
that they are quite unmeaning. In their lips, 
these terms are but a lunar reflection of their 
solar energy, as used by Evangelical men. 
There may be, indeed, exceptional cases of real 
Christians in the ranks of Unitarianism, but Dr. 
Huntington, who has long been familiar with 
the internal state of that denomination, ascribes 
their conversion to "hereditary influences which 
the denomination do not acknowledge," and 
which are entirely outside of their professed 
faith. 1 

1 " For man being renewed in his mind, and beholding and un- 
derstanding Thy truth, needs not man as his director, but by Thy 
direction Thou teachest him, noiv made capable, to discern the 
Trinity of the Unity, and the Unity of the Trinity." — Confessions 
of Augustine, Andover ed. p. 398. 



The Holy Trinity. 223 

The history of the Church illuminates this 
point. The Rev. Thomas Scott, of the Church 
of England, and author of the celebrated Com- 
mentary on the Bible, entered the ministry and 
attempted to preach the Gospel, without any 
personal piety, or any conception of the genius 
of Christianity as a system of Redemption. He 
says, " I was nearly a Socinian and Pelagian, 
and wholly an Arminian." He further says, 
" With a heart full of pride and wickedness, my 
life polluted with many unrepented, unforgiven 
sins ; without one cry for mercy, or one prayer 
for direction; having concealed my real senti- 
ments under the mask of general expressions ; 
having subscribed articles directly contrary to 
what I believed ; and having blasphemously de- 
clared in the presence of God and the congre- 
gation, in the most solemn manner, sealing it 
with the Lord's Supper, that I judged myself to 
be inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take 
that office upon me ; — not knowing or believing 
that there was any Holy Ghost ; — on September 
the 20th, 1772, I was ordained a deacon." In 
this fearful state of mind, for more than four 
years, he oftentimes played at cards in the week, 
and preached what he called the Gospel on the 
Sabbath ; till, at last, through the agency of the 
excellent John Newton, he discovered that there 



224 Fugitives. 

is a "Holy Ghost" by His renewing grace upon 
his heart. Immediately he renounced his Soci- 
nianism, and was ever after an able advocate of 
the Evangelical faith. The Rev. Dr. Chalmers, 
of the Church of Scotland, is another example, 
perhaps still more in point. Gifted with an in- 
tellect of gigantic strength, cultivated and ma- 
tured by the very highest attainments in science, 
and possessing rheotrical powers such as have 
rarely adorned the sacred desk, he had every 
possible advantage for preaching the Gospel 
successfully, if it can be done at all, with its dis- 
tinctive doctrines all left out. This experiment 
he unconsciously persisted in for more than ten 
years. During this long period, he often went 
into his pulpit with " the most unappeasable dis- 
quietude of conscience," and the most distressing 
convictions of sin. Finally, a severe illness and 
the reading of Wilberforce's "Practical View of 
Christianity," by the blessing of God, opened 
his eyes, and brought him a guilty sinner to the 
foot of the Cross. The tone of his public min- 
istrations was suddenly changed. " Jesus Christ 
and Him Crucified " was now his great theme. 
He himself characterized the utter powerlessness 
of his previous preaching in the following ener- 
getic terms : " Christ, through whose blood the 
sinner is brought to the Heavenly Lawgiver 



The Holy Trinity. 225 

whom he has offended, was scarcely ever spoken 
of, or spoken of in such a way as stripped Him 
of all the importance of his character and offices. 
I am not sensible that all the vehemence with 
which I urged the virtues and the proprieties of 
social life had the weight of a feather upon the 
moral habits of my parishioners. It was not 
till I got impressed by the utter alienation of 
the heart from God; it was not till the free offer 
of forgiveness through the blood of Christ was 
urged upon their acceptance, and the Holy 
Spirit, through the channel of Christ's Media- 
torship, was set before them, that I ever heard 
even of any subordinate reformations among 
them. I have been taught that to preach 
Christy is the only effective way of preaching 
morality." If, then, Dr. Chalmers, with his in- 
comparable eloquence but without the doctrines 
of the Gospel, could not discover, after ten 
years' trial, that he had effected the slightest im- 
provement even in " the moral habits of his 
parishioners," and if, after his conversion he be- 
came, as is well known, one of the most succes- 
ful ministers in Scotland, what a commentary 
do these facts read to the world of the impo- 
tence of the Rationalistic, and the power of the 
Evangelical system ! But the comparative im- 
potence of Unitarianism is confessed by its 
29 



226 Fugitives. 

friends. Dr. Joseph Priestley said that "a 
great number of the Unitarians are without 
much practical religion, and there is a greater 
apparent conformity to the world in them than is 
observable in others." The following confession 
of the Rev. James Martineau, probably the 
ablest Unitarian minister of the present day in 
England, is as unaccountable as it is remarkable. 
Speaking of those who deny the Trinity he says : 
" Neither my intellectual preference nor my 
moral admiration goes heartily with their heroes, 
sects, or productions of any age. Ebionites, 
Arians, Socinians, all seem to me to contrast un- 
favorably with their opponents, and to exhibit a 
type of thought and character far less worthy, 
on the whole, of the true genius of Christianity. 
I am conscious that my deepest obligations, as 
a learner from others, are in almost every depart- 
ment to writers not of my own creed. In Bib- 
lical interpretation, I derive from Calvin and 
Whitby the help that fails me in Crell and 
Belsham, In devotional literature and religious 
thought, I find nothing of ours that does not 
pale before Augustine, Tauler and Pascal. 
And in the poetry of the Church, it is the Latin 
or the German hymns, or the lines of Charles 
Wesley or of Keble that fasten on my memory 
and heart, and make all else seem poor and 



The Holy Trinity. 227 

cold. That I find myself in intellectual accord- 
ance with the Socini, or Blandrata, or Servetus 
in one cardinal doctrine," (the bare Unity of 
God,) "and that a doctrine not distinctively 
Christian, but belonging also to Judaism, to 
Islam, and to simple Deism, — is as nothing 
compared with the intense response wrung from 
me by some of Luther's readings of St. Paul, or by 
his favorite book, the 4 Theologia Germanica.' " 

The Rev. Dr. Bellows, one of the ablest 
members of that denomination in this country, 
has pronounced Unitarianism " a failure " and is 
looking round for a better faith. 

The practical workings of that system are 
thus truthfully set forth by Dr. Huntington : — 
" There is a diminished attachment to the person 
of the Saviour. The exultant thankfulness, at 
release by the Cross from a deserved misery, is 
gone. A living faith in any Divine Personality 
gives place to a frigid intellectual nature-wor- 
ship. Deism is followed by naturalism, natural- 
ism by materialism, — a materialism not a whit the 
less Pagan, because adorned with taste, learning, 
and a liberal application of those terms of Chris- 
tian phraseology, and those habits of external 
decorum, which are the inestimable boon and 
heritage transmitted from the disowned creed of 
the Gospels. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost 



228 Fugitives. 

dwindles into an attenuated, aesthetic impression 
of a regular, natural Providence. The special 
act of that Person, Regeneration, is dwarfed into 
a self-improvement by the human will. The 
liberty of genuine prayer is shortened — if 
prayer in articulate forms survives at all — into 
a dull and barren process of self-stimulation, 
which yields effects like dropping buckets into 
empty wells ; — for a fixed order of events cannot 
hear supplication or praise. Missions are lan- 
guid or unknown. The parishes are deadened 
at home. Discussions or diversions occupy the 
empty room of the prayer-meeting, and the 
question, whether anything which can properly 
be called a Church of Christ will continue, is 
only a question of time." * 

Look, also, for the ineffectiveness of Unita- 
rian preaching, at the topics very frequently dis- 
cussed. The great themes of Evangelical truth 
being generally discarded, in the paucity of 
Scriptural subjects which remains, a conflagra- 
tion, a steamboat disaster, or an unusual political 
event, is hailed as a godsend for the next Sab- 
bath's sermon ; and once, we have been informed, 
when no " sad accident " by flood or fire had for 
a long time occurred to furnish the desired topic, 
a clergyman of that faith eloquently discoursed 

1 Christian Believing and Living. Serm. xx. 



The Holy trinity. 229 

to his people upon the comparative commercial 
merits of Boston and Baltimore, as ports of 
entry ! * Literary disquisitions take the place of 
earnest appeals to " flee from the wrath to come." 

" How oft, when Paul has served him with a text, 
Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully preached :" — 

till vital piety, and the congregation too, have 
been mostly preached out of the House of God ! 
We contemplate this picture, none too deeply 
shaded, with unmingled sorrow; and now turn 
away from it with joy to consider, briefly, the 
cheering effects of the doctrine of the Trinity and 
its related truths upon the spiritual interests of 
men. In no aspect, perhaps, do these truths show 
their moral power more impressively, than in their 
relation to the highest forms of Christian experi- 
ence. A cloud of witnesses, from all the Chris- 
tian ages, testify to the transcendent power of 
the Trinity upon the devoutest intercourse of 
the soul with God, — " praying, worshipping, 
climbing up unto Him, through an experience 

1 Facts are frequently occurring among us which demonstrate 
the waning fortunes of Unitarianism, such as the gradual recovery 
of Harvard University to its primal design, and the abandonment 
of Antioch College, Ohio, by President Hill, from a sheer want 
of funds to support the Faculty. Referring to the limited and 
diminishing influence of that system, an eminent Unitarian clergy, 
man recently said, that Unitarians, in their free-and-easy conversa- 
tions among themselves, often speak of it " as little more than a 
* Boston notion.' " 



230 Fugitives. 

shaped in the moulds " of this doctrine. More 
than two centuries ago, Francis Junius, a distin- 
guished Professor of Divinity in the University 
at Heidelberg, affirmed, that he was "converted 
from atheism by the Christian Trinity, or by the 
sense of God rolled in upon his soul by that 
stupendous mystery of the Gospel." John 
Howe, one of the greatest lights of the Eng- 
lish Church, says : " When we are to consider 
God as our God, we must take in the conception 
of each of the persons, — God the Father, God 
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, is my God." 
The Marquis De Renty, a distinguished French 
disciple of the seventeenth century, describes his 
own living experience in these words : " I bear 
in me ordinarily an experimental versification of 
the most Holy Trinity, which elevates me to a 
simple view of God." The great and philo- 
sophic Edwards, of Northampton, says : " God 
has appeared glorious to me on account of the 
Trinity. It has made me have exalting thoughts 
of God, that He subsists in Three Persons, Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost. The sweetest joys and de- 
lights I have experienced have not been those 
that have arisen from the hope of my own good 
estate, but from a direct view of the glorious 
things of the Gospel." The celebrated Lady 
Maxwell, of the Wesleyan connection, says: 



The Holy Trinity. 231 

"Yesterday, while attending public worship, I 
was favored with a clear view of the Trinity, 
which I never had before, and enjoyed fellow- 
ship with a Iriune God. I was in the Spirit 
on the Lord's day, and felt my mind fixed in 
deep contemplation upon that glorious, incom- 
prehensible object, the ever-blessed Trinity. 
Hitherto, I have been led to view the Holy 
Ghost chiefly as an agent, now I behold Him 
distinctly as the Third Person of the Trinity. 
I have, in my own soul, an experimental proof 
of the truth of this doctrine. Eternity alone 
can unfold the sacred mystery ; but, in the mean 
time, what we may and do comprehend of it is 
replete with comfort to the Christian." 

The Rev. Dr. Bushnell, to whom we are 
indebted for the collection of several of these 
facts, says : " It is impossible not to admire the 
gospel formula, that can so flood the human soul 
in its narrowed and blinded state with the sense 
of God, and raise it to a pitch of blessing so 
transcendent. The amazing power of the 
Trinity, acting thus on the human imagination, 
and the contribution thus made to Christian ex- 
perience, cannot be over-estimated. After we 
have thus discovered how closely related the 
Christian Trinity is to Christian experience, and 
all the highest realizations of God, it will not be 



232 Fugitives, 

difficult to account for the remarkable tenacity 
of the doctrine. It cannot die ! God, by His 
Trinity, thus brought nigh to our fallen nature 
and accommodated to our wants as sinners, what 
can ever expel this doctrine from the world's 
thought ? As soon shall we part with the day- 
light or the air, as lapse into the cold and feeble 
monotheism, in which some teachers of our 
time are ready to boast as the gospel of reason. 
No ; this corner-stone is not to be so easily 
removed. It was planted before the foundation 
of the world, and it will remain. It is eternally 
woven into the practical economy of God's 
kingdom, and it must therefore stand firm." 

The doctrine of the Trinity, thus forming 
the very groundwork of our salvation and the 
interior life of the devoutest men, is the main- 
spring of all human progress, of Christian mis- 
sions to the heathen, and of all revivals of pure 
religion. It meets the wants of the individual 
soul in its conscious estrangement from God, 
fills it with profound sorrow for sin, and with 
"joy unspeakable" in the hour of conversion, 
and then gradually raises it to the highest plane 
of Christian experience and hope. 

In his holiest frames and in his nearest access 
to God, the Christian feels his need of the Trin- 
ity, and of all the Persons in the Trinity, to effect 



The Holy trinity. 233 

his salvation. He needs the Father to Plan the 
work and to Preside over its progress ; the Son 
to Atone for him here and to Intercede for him 
above ; and the Holy Ghost to supplement and 
give effect to the work of both, by Renewing, 
Sanctifying, and Comforting his heart. He can- 
not pray to God without the Trinity; he cannot 
praise God without the Trinity. Which of the 
Persons, then, can he spare ? Every sensibility 
of his soul cries out, " Neither ! " " Neither ! " 
Take away either, and you take away his all. 
He feels that he hourly needs the cooperating, 
interacting grace of the Three, and that he shall 
need it to give him victory in death and a crown 
in Heaven. 

Here, then, we rest our fourfold argument for 
the Tri'Unity of Persons in the Ever-Blessed God ; 
— and it only remains to express the hope, that 
all the readers of this article may at once cor- 
dially accept this precious mystery of the Chris- 
tian Faith in its vital power. In this way, and 
in this alone, can they be prepared to unite with 
the redeemed Church on earth and in heaven in 
their sublime and rapturous ascription, — " Glory 
be to the Father, and to the Son, and to 
the Holy Ghost; as it was in the begin- 
ning, is now, and ever shall be, world 
without end. amen." 

30 



LUX IN TENEBRIS, 
OR SUNLIGHT THROUGH THE CLOUDS. 

Blest Saviour! if I'm Thine, 

Scatter my doubts away, 
And on this darkened soul of mine 

Pour beams of heavenly day. 

Give me some taste of heaven 
While in this vale of tears ; 

Some opening gleams and transports e'en, 
Of beatific years ; — 

Some splendors of Thy throne 

To gild this dreary land ; 
Some visions of the golden crown, 

Prepared at Thy right hand ; — 

Some nectar drops of joy 

Which angels cannot taste, 
1 As I lie down at last to die 

Upon my Saviour's breast ; — 

Some streams of heavenly light 
To illumine death's dark vale, 

While sainted friends, enrobed in white, 
And beckoning seraphs hail. 



Lux in Tenebris. 

Then will I lay my crown 

At my Redeemer's feet, 
And raise the loudest, sweetest song 

In all that world of light. 

Victorious paeans break 

From all the ransomed throng, 
And Gabriel leans upon his harp, 

Astonished at the song. 



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